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"Georgia is a core country of the South Caucasus. It is not possible to visualise the region without Georgia."
30 October 2025
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2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum held successfully in Tbilisi. Next forum will be held in Yerevan and after that in Baku
30 October 2025
The 2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum was successfully held in the Georgian Capital, Tbilisi, on Tuesday, 28 October 2025, with the participation of over seventy experts, activists, diplomats and journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and from a dozen European countries and organisations.
The forum is an initiative of LINKS Europe, working with partners across the South Caucasus.
This year's forum was special because of the participation of around forty Armenian and Azerbaijanis members of the Thematic Groups for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue. The 2nd South Caucasus Dialogue Forum provided for a very thorough and interesting discussion of current developments in the region. In the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani members were also joined by Georgian participants, as well as representatives of the EUSR Office, EUMA and Ambassadors and diplomats from around ten European countries.
Also actively participating were the members of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Expert Strategic Platform.
During the Forum it was announced that the 3rd Forum will be held in Yerevan in 2026, whilst the 4th Forum will be held in Baku is 2027, accompanying the process and meetings of the European Political Community, which are also expected to be held in the two countries in 2026/7. It was also announced that the members of the Strategic Expert Platform, working under the auspices of LINKS Europe (Dr Dennis Sammut, Chair, Dr Anar Veliyev, Mr Ramazan Samadov and Mr Mehman Aliyev (members Azerbaijan); Mr Stepan Grigoryan, Mr Benyamin Poghosyan and Mr Johnny Melikyan, members Armenia;) shall form the Political Preparatory Committee for the two events.
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Editorial: Give Georgia EU candidate status before the end of the year
15 June 2023
"These are difficult times for Georgia, for Europe, and for the whole world. Yet from every crisis, an opportunity arises. The Ukraine crisis has created conditions that open Georgia’s door for EU membership. Regardless of the rather unorthodox path this endeavour has taken, future generations of both Georgians and Europeans will look back at this historic moment, and say that the right thing was done," writes commonspace.eu in this editorial. "But before that, there is much work to be done. Candidate status will only be the beginning of a long, laborious and difficult process. And as a priority, the EU needs to develop a much more sophisticated communication strategy for dealing with Georgia and the Georgian people. It's useless preaching values or stating hard truths unless you can explain them in the way that your audience can understand them. Those that wanted to drive a wedge between Georgia and the EU have played on this weakness. If Georgia becomes a candidate country, dealing with this issue will become easier to deliver, even if achieving the objective will still be difficult."
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Georgian PM visits Brussels, says government "spares no effort to obtain EU candidate status"
15 June 2023
The Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili paid an official visit to Brussels yesterday Wednesday (14 June), in which he met with the European Council President, Charles Michel, and addressed this year’s Europalia biennial multidisciplinary arts festival, which is showcasing Georgian arts and culture.
In a statement posted on the website of the Georgian PM, it was announced that Garibashvili held a business lunch at the invitation of President Michel, in which the process of Georgia's accession to the EU was the main topic of discussion.
"Dignitaries reviewed the progress achieved by Georgia towards the implementation of 12 priorities defined by the European Commission. Leaders noted that recognition of the European Perspective of the country is a historic decision, thereby highlighting that granting the status of an EU Candidate Country to Georgia by the end of the year is critical, inter alia for ending the polarization in the country. Special attention was paid during the discussion to the security architecture in the region, along with the grave humanitarian and security position in the occupied territories of Georgia," the statement added.
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Swedish negotiators head to Ankara for renewed talks on NATO membership
14 June 2023
Swedish negotiators are in the Turkish capital city of Ankara today, on Wednesday (14 June), for the first set of talks with Turkey on its NATO membership bid since President Erdogan's election victory on 28 May.
Sweden applied for NATO membership alongside Finland on 18 May 2022, almost three months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. While Finland joined the military alliance on 4 April, Sweden's bid continues to be held up by objections from Turkey and Hungary.
Sweden's chief NATO negotiator Oscar Stenström and top civil servant in the Swedish foreign ministry, Jan Knutsson, are expected to meet Akif Cagatay Kilic, the new security advisor appointed by President Erdogan following his 28 May victory.
The two sides will discuss Sweden's membership of NATO, and the extent to which the country has fulfilled its promises in the so-called "trilateral memorandum" between Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed at NATO's summit in Madrid on 28 June last year. Last Sunday (4 June), NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged Turkey to approve Sweden's membership ahead of the bloc's summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 11-12 July.
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Liechtenstein FM makes first official visit to Georgia
13 June 2023
Liechtenstein's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Education and Sports Dominique Hasler is making her first official visit to Georgia from Sunday (11 June) to Tuesday (13 June).
Immediately after arriving on Sunday, Hasler visited Odzisi, the closest village to the administrative line separating Russian-occupied South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia "to get acquainted with the ongoing situation in areas adjacent to the line", according to agenda.ge. The First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Lasha Darsalia, accompanied Hasler to the occupation line.
On Monday (12 June), Hasler also met with her Georgian counterpart Ilia Darchiashvili, as well as with the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, and the Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili.
Describing Hasler's first official visit to Georgia as "historic", Darchiashvili highlighted the two states had potential to further strengthen economic ties through Georgia’s agreements via the European Free Trade Association, of which Liechtenstein - the six smallest country in the world - is a member.
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Briefing: intensive diplomatic efforts around the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process
9 June 2023
Intense diplomatic efforts over the last month are a good reflection of a sustained determination on the part of Armenia and Azerbaijan to bring their decades-old conflict to an end, and sign a peace agreement, writes commonspace.eu.
Meetings between president Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and prime minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia were held in Brussels on 15 May, with the mediation of EU Council president Charles Michel. The three leaders met again on 1 June in Chisinau, this time also with the participation of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Aliyev and Pashinyan met, together with president Putin of Russia, in Moscow on 25 May. And on 4 June the leaders of both Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Ankara for the inauguration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s new term in office, where they also met informally. The next formal meeting is now set to be held in July in Brussels.
A lot is also going on behind the scenes with European and American envoys travelling in the region.
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EU interior ministers reach "historic" agreement on migration, but significant opposition remains
9 June 2023
Interior ministers from the European Union's 27 member states reached a deal on the bloc's migration policy yesterday (8 June) after some 12 hours of negotiations at a meeting in Luxembourg.
The agreement outlines how responsibility for looking after migrants and refugees who arrive in the EU without authorisation is shared out among member states, a topic which has been the source of much disagreement since 2015, when well over 1 million migrants and refugees entered the EU, many of them fleeing the war in Syria.
Under the deal agreed yesterday and set to be finalised ahead of a 2024 EU election, each country would be responsible for a set number of people, but would not necessarily have to take them in. Countries unwilling to receive irregular migrants and refugees arriving ad hoc to the EU would be able to help their hosting peers through cash - around 20,000 euros per person - equipment or personnel, reports Reuters.
The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years.