Under the leadership of the Open Society Georgia Foundation, 9 civil society organizations regularly evaluate the state of fulfillment of 12 priorities defined by the EU. The fifth edition of their assessment document – EU CANDIDACY CHECK reflects the progress achieved by the Georgian authorities in this context until the period of August 1, 2023, as well as the current state of play and the steps to be implemented in the future by the authorities so that Georgia gets the EU Candidacy Status.
According to CSOs’ assessments, at this stage, one priority is fully implemented, two priorities are mostly fulfilled, seven priorities are partially fulfilled, and two priorities (deoligarchisation and political polarization) defined by the European Union are to be fulfilled. The previous EU CANDIDACY CHECK documents have shown that civil society assessments are largely in line with the interim assessment presented by the EU on 22 June 2023.
From June 20 to August 1, 2023, small progress has been made in terms of fulfilling the priorities such as media pluralism and involvement of CSOs in decision-making. In the first context, the President pardoned Nika Gvaramia, and on the other hand, the government considered certain recommendations of the civil society in the process of developing a number of draft laws.
EU CANDIDACY CHECK combines the expectations of EU institutions, member states, civil society, and political groups.
The document comprises the assessments of the following organizations: Open Society Georgia Foundation, Democracy Research Institute, Georgian Court Watch, Georgian Democracy Initiative, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Governance Monitoring Center, Georgia’s Reforms Associates, Partnership for Human Rights, and Sapari.
About two months remain for the authorities to take advantage of this historical opportunity and fulfill all the priorities defined by the European Commission. Civil Society Organizations continue to assess the progress of the government in fulfilling 12 priorities and share the assessments with the citizens of Georgia, as EU membership is a strong will of the people of Georgia.
