Reforms That Alienate Us from Europe

Tea Topuria

What is the most important – wealth or prosperity? Europe answered this question long ago and stated that wealth does not mean prosperity at all. Sustainable development strategy of Europe relies on this principle – develop steadily but safely. Despite Georgia’s aspirations for the EU, its real activities contradict the European policy in general.

Under the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan Georgia’s commitment is to work out strategy for sustainable development. Georgian civil society organizations allege the process has not been launched yet.

Shota Murgulia, the Center for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia, program coordinator: “They do everything correctly; they share reforms of other countries and build the system but everything has one bolt unscrewed in order to hinder the system to work.”

Nowadays, European notion of prosperity and valuable life, besides pure economical indicators (GDP and its dynamic), lay on security and health of a person, right to honorable work and proper rest, involvement in public life, comfortable and safe social environment and solidarity between generations – secure aging for elderly people and better physical, economic and social environment for future generations. All abovementioned criteria make up valuable life for European community.

The situation is controversial in Georgia. The pension is significantly low in comparison with the subsistence minimum (nowadays the pension in Georgia is 100 GEL per month while SM is 137, 8 GEL per person). The allowance for vulnerable groups is also very meager.

As for unemployment, unlike Europe, there is no public agency in Georgia which can assist citizens to find a job. The elderly generation (age from 50 to 60) is unemployed. In parallel to it, the European Parliament declared the 2012 as “Year for Active Aging and Solidarity between Generations”. The same problems are in the fields of food safety, healthcare and other fields which are priorities for Europe.

As for natural resources, the Forest Reform caused serious controversy in Georgia. The government tries to amend the Forest Code and lease out the forests of Georgia for 49 years without preliminary census in accordance to Austrian model. Initially, they even intended to sell out forests including unique, virgin and degraded forests; though they still discuss this idea.

Natia Iordanashvili, forest management department within the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Georgia: “Amendments have been permanently introduced to the forest sector since 2003; though none of them had positive result. Thus, we decided to start the reform. Census of the forest is too expensive so the leaser will do it with his own expenses. The ministry will examine the census results based on selection method.”

The leaser can refuse to lease the territory after inventory activities finish (two years later) if he finds the forest is not profitable for business. However, in this case, it is unclear why the investor should conduct expensive inventory activities if finally it may turn up useless expenditure for him.

Natia Iordanashvili said there are old census results which can assist a leaser to have inaccurate but approximate idea about the leased forest.

The Caucasian Environmental NGO Network (CENN) states that the reform cannot ensure the sustainable development; moreover, it is dangerous. There is no control mechanism to monitor the activities of the leaser; the lease-agreement envisages possibility to change the forest status and exploitation of the territory for other purposes; it also allows the leaser to spend water and mineral resources; the bio-variety of the country will be endangered which is already in the list of hot spots of the world bio-varieties; the reform will leave communities, municipalities and regions without natural resources that might hinder development of the regions during next 49 years and in general the decentralization process of the country. The model proposed for the management of the forest sector excludes chance to create new, protected territories though Georgian government has been implementing this project with international financial support for several years already. The state will monitor the forest management only through market control; but as for management of the forest protection, the government will not have possibility and resources to control it.