Report on the Implementation of Georgia’s European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan | საერთაშორისო გამჭვირვალობა - საქართველო
GEO

Report on the Implementation of Georgia’s European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan

12 January, 2010
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) provides a framework through which the EU can offer assistance and encourage political, economic and social reforms in its neighbours, both old and new. These reforms are intended to enhance democracy in the target countries, protect human rights, encourage economic development, and bring the countries into closer alignment with the EU. Georgia agreed to a set of reform priorities with the EU under the ENP in an individual action plan that was ratified in 2006. The plan covers a wide range of areas of Georgian domestic politics, economics, governance and security. Civil society in Georgia has been actively involved in the development and monitoring of the ENP process from the beginning and its involvement has been essential in ensuring wider understanding of the ENP process, and wider participation in the development of the action plan. In September 2005, approximately 70 civil society organizations, with support of the Open Society-Georgia Foundation and the Heinrich Boell Foundation prepared recommendations to be considered in the development of the action plan. Since 2006, the government and the EU have continued to update and evaluate the implementation of the action plan. In order to maintain civil society involvement, in 2006 the Open Society-Georgia Foundation, the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Eurasia Foundation initiated a European Neighbourhood Policy monitoring group. As a part of this initiative the group prepared recommendations that were subsequently discussed with the European Commission and some of the comments were incorporated into their ENP progress report published in April 2008. While this involvement in the European Commission evaluation was useful it was also considered that civil society should maintain a separate evaluative voice. To that end, in 2008 The Heinrich Boell Foundation, Transparency International Georgia (TI), the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and Green Alternative initiated an informal coalition to monitor the implementation of the European neighbourhood policy in Georgia. The purpose of this report is for members of the Georgian NGO Coalition to provide a supplementary analysis, from the position of civil society, on some of the priorities and actions set out in the 2006 ENP Action Plan and on the 2008 progress report from the government. The intention is not to be comprehensive but to offer insights into the ENP AP and its implementation in the areas that specifically relate to the expertise within the Coalition. Therefore, the focus of analysis has been on issues that relate to the rule of law, human rights and the environment. The focus on the rule of law also serves an additional purpose. The government’s ENP AP Implementation Plan for 2008 is a far more comprehensive document then the Implementation Strategy adopted in 2007. It sets detailed timeframes for the expected realisation of specific activities, indentifies responsible agencies for the implementation, outlines funding sources and includes status sections. However the 2008 Action Plan does not follow the structure of the ENP AP for 2007-2011 and does not support the Criminal Justice Reform Strategy Action Plan, which is indicated in the ENP AP as the strategy for the reform of the whole judicial system. As a result, the 2008 implementation plan is less exhaustive in its consideration of legal reforms than the original ENP AP and so it is even more important to provide original evaluation of it. The report as a whole is structured in accordance with the ENP action plan. The ENP action plan is made up of a section called ‘Priority Areas’ that highlights the main themes of importance to the ENP and a section entitled ‘General Actions and Objectives’ that lays out more specific actions. Unfortunately, the second section does not simply elaborate detail springing from the first – so there is some overlap in the suggestions they make. Following this model, the report does have some thematic repetition. The coalition analysis of specific reform sectors identified or prioritised by the ENP Action Plan are summarised below. The majority of them are included in the 2008 Implementation Plan adopted by the government. However, the assessments of positive or negative progress by the NGO coalition highlight omissions in the implementation schedule as well as forthcoming problems and areas which have not been paid sufficient attention by this government.
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