Using EU’s external governance to promote good governance in Eastern Partnership: evidence from Georgia

Abstract

The European Union (EU) set bringing neighbouring countries closer to the European Union as a priority. The EU does so by exporting internal rules, values and modes of governance to the non-member states, thus exercising external governance. Georgia is one of the target countries of the EU’s external governance, withal often being praised for being a frontrunner in democracy and good governance development in the region. Despite significant developments in the EU-Georgia relations, such as signing Association Agreement, DCFTA and visa-free travel, Georgia is not promised membership by the EU. Scholarly literature widely argues that none of the other smaller rewards offered by the EU to the non-member countries can substitute the membership conditionality, which is crucial for successful external governance. This research aims to explain why, despite no membership conditionality, Georgia continues to adopt EU standards and meet taken obligation under the Association Agreement. This research is based on three analytical approaches—namely, neo-institutionalist, power-based and domestic structure. Combining them will allow us to analyze the EU based, domestic and external variables that affect Georgia’s performance. The paper assesses the degree of the EU incentives, Georgian commitment, domestic adoption costs and external, namely Russian influence on the Europeanization process in Georgia. The study takes a sector-specific approach and looks specifically at three policy areas – trade, energy, and environment. Moreover, the thesis takes governance over linkage and leverage as the primary EU’s external governance model. According to the research results, Georgia demonstrates an adequate level of commitment compared to the incentives it is getting from the EU in all three sectors. Similarly, Georgia faces medium domestic adoption costs with a slight difference between the trade and energy and less politicized environmental policy area. Lastly, Russian leverage in analyzed sectors is low in trade and energy and none in the environment. In sum, out of those variables outlined in the paper, medium domestic adoption costs combined with the low negative external influence could explain why despite no membership conditionality Georgia continues sectoral approximation with the EU standards and demonstrates medium commitment in all three sectors.