In December of 2023, the European Commission came out with a decision to grant Georgia EU candidate status, after which our country must carry out urgent reforms in nine priority areas. A Coalition uniting 12 CSOs [1] led by the Civil Society Foundation (formerly the Open Society Georgia Foundation) has prepared a detailed vision outlining how the nine steps spelled out by the European Commission should be effectively fulfilled to move to the next stage in European integration and achieve the opening of negotiations on accession to the EU.
The vision elaborated by CSOs is presented in the form of a matrix and is underpinned by assessments and recommendations of the European Commission, the Council of the European Commission, other international organizations, as well as studies and reports prepared by CSOs. The same organizations are involved in working out a vision for the effective fulfillment of these new nine steps, which monitored the fulfillment of 12 priorities conditioned by the EC to obtain candidate country status. Those are: CSF, GDI, DRI, Union “Sapari”, Court Watch, GMC, GRASS, GFSIS and with their involvement six monitoring reports – Status Meters – were published in 2023, which were largely in concurrency with the EC assessments. This year, four more organizations adjoined the Coalition – GYLA, ISFED, SJC, IDFI – which have long-standing experience and in-depth expertize in respective areas.
The nine steps defined by the European Commission are multidimensional and therefore their fulfillment requires integrated approaches. The informal coalition will carry on with monitoring this process relying on the presented vision. CSOs will work out recommendations and take efforts to support both government accountability, transparency of reforms and boosting of inclusiveness. In parallel, the Coalition is eager to cooperate with the authorities in working formats to bolster systemic and fundamental reforms.
CSOs will be focused on the thematic areas defined in nine steps as follows:
