The Politics of Flexibility: Exploring the Contested Statehood–EU Actorness Nexus in Georgia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines whether contested statehood represents a hindering condition for EU actorness in Georgia, a country where the EU has had ample opportunities to engage with contested territories. It focuses on EU engagement in Georgia in three policy areas – conflict management, migration and mobility, and trade – where the implications of divergent conceptions of sovereignty, legitimate authority and territoriality are most salient. The article argues that the EU has gone to great lengths in adjusting its frameworks and their practical implementation to accommodate Georgia’s ‘problematic sovereignty’ by adopting a flexible approach: conflict management policies explicitly include the unrecognised territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; migration and mobility instruments omit any reference to Georgia’s contested statehood, implying the two entities’ default inclusion in visa liberalisation; and trade explicitly excludes them from the DCFTA, unless the Georgian government can ensure full enforcement in these territories. Regardless of the EU’s attempt at flexibility, the irreconcilable interests of the conflict parties, together with the EU’s privileging of international legal recognition, has resulted in a fractured record of EU actorness: strong actorness towards the 80% of Tbilisi-controlled territory, and low actorness towards the two unrecognised entities.