A Minimum of Ten Years Before Georgian Joins European Union

“We underwent a similar situation 10-12 years ago…The events you are telling about now occurred in our country when “Solidarnichi” was reigning in Poland and when the Soviet Union collapsed. The current events in Georgia have surprised us seeing that our country has been in a similar situation before, ,” said polish journalists in Warsaw when journalists from the Georgian regions attended a one-week training in Poland.

Poland is a member of the European Union now and manages to adhere to democratic values. Moreover, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the foundation “Democratic Development in the East” tries to support and share its experience with all countries, including Georgia, who tries to join the European Union.

First of all, polish experts draw their attention to the perspectives of the development of independent media and its development in Georgia. Local printed media is most developed in Poland. For example, publishing house “Tigodnik” (weekly) in the Starakhovitsa region has offices in all four cities of the region; the newspaper contains 40 pages and it is in color. One of the publishers of the newspaper, Ianush Tomchinski, said that in fifteen years of publishing he cannot remember any time when the government took measures to close down the local printed media sources.

“The government and the society of our country is fully aware of the responsibility they took on by becoming a member of the European Union. We have a common fight. Initial problems regarding articles emerged twelve years ago; but now it is ridiculous to talk about it. We can state loudly that the existence of the independent and developed media was  a precondition for joining the European Union,” said the founder of the “Tigodnik”.

The journalists of the newspaper are surprised to hear about the difficulties Georgian journalists face while obtaining public information and about the restrictions placed on their professional activities.

“When we need some comments from any public official or we have to check some information, we easily get in touch with them. Although all officials have spokespeople, we often manage to get in touch with them without their spokespeople. Usually it is enough to call them,” said Magda Shidlovetsi, a journalist.

The printed media encourages the strengthening of local autonomous government. Every public official realizes that restricting journalists and hiding information from them, is a failure of democracy and it would be embarrassing for a member of the European Union.

“All information is completely available. It is unbelievable to me that there is a ten-day waiting period for receiving public information from the chancellery; that you have to appeal to the court, that you are physically assaulted, threatened, and kicked out from the quarters of public officials, etc;. this never happened in our country. Nobody would ever dream of it,” said the Mayor Skarzhiski; in Polish he is called Burmistrz of the city.

Recent events in Warsaw demonstrate that the existence of strong autonomous local governments is a precondition for joining the EU. For example, the city government made the President’s administration furious because during one whole week the central TV channels were broadcasting briefings from President Kachinski’s representative.

The President’s administration accuses the local government of Warsaw of paralyzing the activities of the president in the name of repair works. It is approximately six months ago that they started to dig up the streets of the center of Warsaw in front of the president’s residence. The rehabilitation works of the water pipeline are still under way. The administration of Kachinski considers that the City Mayor is prolonging the repair works on purpose because he aims to hamper the president’s administration. “For the up-coming election day the City Mayor tries to put obstacles in the way of the President Kachinski and his political team,” - announced the chief of the president’s administration.

The relationship between the President and the Mayor in Poland totally differs from the one in Georgia; in Georgia the president and the city mayor are on the same side during the election. This is surprising to the democratic Polish.

Recently, the Polish Prosecutor’s Office got into a deadlock. The Prosecutor’s Office follows the rule of law and refuses to arrest an MP for the second time. As it turned out the MP was involved in some dubious affairs and was summoned to the prosecutor for interrogation. However, the court discharged the MP because of a lack of evidence against him. The Prosecutor’s Office has summoned the MP for the second time for newly discovered evidence on the same case, though only as a witness. In accordance to Polish legislation it is not allowed to arrest an MP twice.

All in all, the regional journalists of Georgia had an opportunity compare experiences with regional journalists from Poland and to learn about the ongoing situation there. They focused on the journey of the hosting county from the collapse of the Soviet Union to their integration into the EU. Polish journalists told us frankly that Georgia is still far from being ready to enter the EU…

Saba Tsiktsikashvili, Warsaw