Georgien

The Council appointed today Dimitrios Karabalis, a Greek diplomat, as the new Head of Mission for the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM Georgia).

After nearly three years of complete closure, the doors between South Ossetia and Georgia proper are cracking open. Following the election of a new de facto leader in May, the South Ossetian authorities have already opened two crossing points for three brief periods and in late September, will open them again for a 10-day stretch.

Georgians staged a new mass rally on Sunday (3 July) demanding that the government resign over its failure to formally secure candidacy for membership of the European Union.

Presented with a to-do list of issues to address before they can get status as an EU candidate, Georgians have begun to mull over what the demands from Brussels mean and how the country can fulfill them.

Moscow has welcomed the decision of the new leadership of South Ossetia to suspend a planned referendum on joining Russia, though the two sides promised to carry out some other unspecified “integration.”

The leaders of arch-foes Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed in a Brussels meeting Sunday [o5/22] to “advance discussions” on a peace treaty over a troubled region that saw a war break out in 2020, the European Council’s president said.

Anatoly Bibilov, the de facto incumbent leader of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, was defeated by the leader of the Nykhas party, Alan Gagloyev, in a May 8 presidential runoff election. 

The leader of Georgia's Moscow-backed separatist region of South Ossetia, Anatoly Bibilov, says the de facto independent territory is looking to hold a referendum on joining Russia, a move Tbilisi called "unacceptable."

The Ukraine invasion has led Georgia to fast-track its EU membership application, but Tbilisi now urgently needs to tackle Russian disinformation tactics.

Georgia will ‘immediately’ apply for fast-track EU membership, the country’s ruling party said Wednesday (2 March), a day after the European Parliament backed war-torn Ukraine’s bid to apply for fast-track EU membership.