U.S Department of State today issued the press-release of the roundtable discussion on Georgia with Assistant Secretary Philip H. Gordon. The latter commenting on Georgia’s NATO membership noted that” I do think that the evolution of Georgia’s democracy in the wake of the elections is absolutely relevant to questions like NATO membership and MAP and visa facilitation and free trade arrangement in the sense, maybe not absolutely directly, but in the sense that when countries decide what sort of relationship they want to have with Georgia, or when alliances decide what sort of relationship, they’re asking themselves what kind of country is Georgia.
So whether it’s specifically for NATO’s MAP or NATO membership in general, I think NATO countries are asking themselves do we want this country in this democratic alliance? Does it deserve to be? Can we expect it to uphold the standards of democracy and stability that we expect, so it’s absolutely relevant how it’s following up from its elections. Again, to be concrete about this question of arrests, I think if the perception was that the parties in Georgia will not follow the rules of the game and work within constitutional provisions, but instead it would just be a question of who has power. There would be skepticism about whether you want that sort of country within NATO, and so I do think the members of NATO have been watching very carefully how this plays out and their judgment as to whether the process with NATO should move forward, whether specifically on a MAP or just more generally will very much be affected on the state of democracy, and it’s one of the features of this alliance that democracy is a key criterion.
Maybe during the Cold War, it didn’t matter if you were a potential security contributor during the Cold War — and there were members of NATO during the Cold War that were not the most pristine democracies. We put that aside because of overriding security interests. Now the standards are different and higher — it’s a democratic alliance, so it matters very much what the state of democracy looks like and for these questions you asked about visa facilitation and free trade as well. I think members of the U.S. Congress will be watching very carefully as they decide do they support closer economic ties or security ties at the state of democracy.
So it’s not just about Georgia’s domestic affairs, it’s about how Georgia gets on with the rest of the world. “
