Georgia Seeks Gains From Russia in Trade Bloc Talks

As Georgia and Russia restart talks over Moscow’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation, WTO, Tbilisi is looking for major concessions. 

Georgia is already a member of the trade bloc, which means it could veto Russia’s accession, and hopes to use this as leverage to win concessions on a number of issues, such as securing an end to Moscow’s embargo on Georgian products, in place since 2006, and reducing its support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have operated as separate entities since conflicts in the early Nineties.

The meeting in Switzerland was the first of its kind in three years, and it lasted several hours longer than planned. Details were sketchy, but Georgian deputy foreign minister Sergi Kapanadze, one of the two-member national delegation, said afterwards that “Georgia’s position has not changed”.

“I cannot go into details now,” he said. “All I can say at the moment is that the talks process will continue. There will be another meeting soon, though I can’t say exactly when. It will probably be in two months’ time.”

Leading allies of President Mikhail Saakashvili insisted before the talks that Georgia would not make any concessions that could undermine its claim to sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia recognised both these territories as independent republics after its brief war with Georgia in 2008. This means among other things that Georgia has no customs controls there, on what used to be its national frontier with Russia.

“Georgia must not retreat in negotiations with a country that is not just an occupier but which unilaterally imposed an embargo on Georgian products prior to the 2008 war,” Petre Tsiskarishvili, leader of the parliamentary majority, told a session of the house on March 9.

Georgia’s western allies are keen for Russia to join, and this leaves Tbilisi in a difficult negotiating position.

Speaking on March 4, Michael McFaul, Senior Director for Russia and Eurasian Affairs at the United States National Security Council, acknowledged that there were outstanding issues preventing Georgia from moving forward on Russian’s WTO bid. In a nod to Tbilisi’s concerns, he said he believed the Russian negotiators understood that “they have to deal with this issue seriously” and that they could not expect Washington to prod the Georgians into action because “we’re not going to do that”.

But in other comments, he made it clear Washington wanted a conclusion to Russia’s longstanding bid for WTO entry. Russia is by far the largest economy still outside the WTO, which complicates trading relations with other countries.

“I think we’ve made it clear to both our partners in both countries that we see it in the American national interest for Russia to be a member of the WTO,” he said. “I suspect it may be a good thing for Georgia. But I think at the end of the day, this is a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.”

Perhaps mindful of McFaul’s comments, Georgian opposition politicians warned their government not to overplay its hand. They said it was unrealistic to expect Georgian customs officers to be allowed to police Russia’s borders with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and that Tbilisi should concentrate on winning other concessions.

“We need to bear in mind that our demand to place Georgian border guards on the River Psou [Abkhazia] and the Roki Tunnel [South Ossetia] looks unrealistic, and we must be ready to make compromises,” Christian Democrat leader Giorgi Targamadze said.

He said Georgia could seek to replicate a solution found in Moldova, where European Union officials police the border between Ukraine and Transniestria, a self-declared state that is internationally considered part of Moldova.

Another opposition figure, David Gamkrelidze, leader of the New Rights party, listed concessions that negotiators could realistically hope to achieve, saying, “Georgia must demand the annulment, official or unofficial, of the embargo on our products, an end to restrictions on transport links between the two countries, and simplification of visa regulations for Georgian citizens going to Russia, just as the visa system for Russians coming to Georgia has been simplified.”

Analysts interviewed for this article agreed that it was more important to win economic concessions than to persist with fruitless political demands.

“Russia is interested in joining the WTO, but not to the extent that this changes the geopolitical situation. We need to shift matters to the economic plane - let’s take up the issue of opening the Russian market to Georgian products. That would be a reasonable demand which would satisfy everyone,” Giorgi Khukhashvili, head of the Centre for Civil Projects, a think tank in Georgia, said.

Nino Kharadze works for Radio Liberty in Georgia.