Georgia

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, at Bucharest some years ago NATO agreed to accept Georgia as a candidate member. The largest non-NATO, non-British force at Helmand at the moment is two Georgian battalions. We support Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO but it will necessarily, unavoidably be a long process. There are, indeed, British military trainers in Georgia.

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate mentioned Ukraine as a possible parallel. However, is not Ukraine a good deal behind Georgia politically, and therefore could not Georgia qualify much earlier, given also that the Ukrainian opposition leader is still in prison?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is entirely fair to say that Ukraine is considerably behind Georgia in many ways. There was a free and fair election in Georgia last spring which resulted in a change of Government. The Georgian Government have just announced that on 31 October this year there will be a presidential election. Of course, that is not to say that it is a perfect democracy. There are a number of issues, including cases against members of the previous Administration, about which we are concerned. However, when I was in Tbilisi I had lunch at the British embassy with MPs both from the governing party and from the opposition. There are many countries in what was formerly the Soviet Union in which one could not do that.