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  • Vladimir Socor in EDM: Saakashvili-Yushchenko declaration: Europe fr

    SAAKASHVILI-YUSHCHENKO "BORJOMI DECLARATION": EUROPE FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE CASPIAN
    by Vladimir Socor

    Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
    Monday, August 15, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 159

    On August 12 in Borjomi, Georgia, Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili
    of Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine signed a declaration
    broadening the horizon of European and Euro-Atlantic integration to
    the entire "Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian" area, and called on the leaders
    of all countries within this area who share that vision to create a
    Community of Democratic Choice. Saakashvili and Yushchenko propose
    holding a founding summit of the heads of state of this Community
    this autumn in Ukraine.

    In his remarks at the signing ceremony, Saakashvili noted that the
    Borjomi spa resort had in its time been frequented by members of
    Russia's imperial family and later by leading figures in the Soviet
    hierarchy. "Not even in their worst nightmares could they have
    imagined that an independent Georgia and independent Ukraine would
    exist, let alone sign in this very place a declaration on promoting
    freedom," he commented (Imedi TV, August 12). As if to accentuate
    the symbolism, Russian forces had only days earlier passed by Borjomi
    while withdrawing from Georgia to Russia.

    The Borjomi Declaration notes that the Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian area,
    "which belongs in Europe," has a unique potential to offer to Europe
    in terms of human resources, energy supplies, and access from Europe
    to Asia. Thus, democracy and stability in the Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian
    area is a condition to stability and security in Europe as a whole. A
    Community of Democratic Choice in this area can become a major factor
    in "freeing our region from all remaining lines of division, from
    violations of human rights, from frozen conflicts, opening a new era
    of democracy" in this area in the interests of "the whole of Europe,
    from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea." Thus, the vision of Europe
    from the Atlantic to the Caspian forms the core of this initiative.

    Pledging to "conduct policies in Ukraine and Georgia based on
    those principles," Yushchenko and Saakashvili jointly invite the
    leaders of all the countries in the region to become co-founders of a
    Community of Democratic Choice, with a view to turning the Baltic-Black
    Sea-Caspian area into a "fully integrated region of Europe and of the
    Atlantic community." The European Union and Russia (both referenced as
    "close neighbors" to the area in the document) and the United States
    (defined as exponent of democracy) are invited to endorse this regional
    undertaking by attending the founding summit as observers.

    The declaration is cautiously formulated so as to steer clear of
    irritating Russia and to avoid any suggestion that certain countries
    in the region are being asked to choose between Russia and the West.
    For similar reasons, but also for political consensus building
    in the region, the document refrains from mentioning NATO or the
    anti-terrorism coalition. (Although many countries in the region
    are NATO members or aspirants and anti-terrorism coalition members,
    a few are not). Thus, the document's emphasis falls overwhelmingly
    on unexceptionable democratic values.

    Saakashvili had initially proposed holding the regional summit in Yalta
    to underscore the demise of the Yalta system of division of Europe and
    the need to consolidate freedom in what used to be Moscow's sphere of
    influence ("Time for a Return to Yalta," Washington Post, May 10). The
    Ukrainian-Georgian declaration, however, does not mention Yalta
    either for symbolism (as Saakashvili did with reference to Borjomi
    in his own remarks) or as a possible venue for the proposed regional
    summit. This caution clearly reflects the Ukrainian leadership's
    concern to improve its relations with Moscow and Russian voters in
    Ukraine during the parliamentary election campaign, which will be in
    full swing in Ukraine by the time the summit convenes there.

    Rather than hosting a Yalta-demise summit in Crimea, therefore,
    Yushchenko announced in Borjomi that he would soon be hosting a
    Soviet-nostalgia event with Russian President Vladimir Putin in
    Crimea to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the
    Soviet "pioneers" camp in Artek (Imedi TV, August 12). The Community
    of Democratic Choice founding summit will, in any case, also mark an
    "end to the history of division in Europe, of domination by force and
    by fear, and mark a new beginning of neighborly relations based on
    mutual respect, confidence, transparency" (www.georgia.president.ge).

    With Georgia as initiator, the Georgian-Ukrainian declaration is the
    first interstate public document to use the term "Europe from the
    Atlantic to the Caspian" and to sketch, if only in broad outline,
    a concept to substantiate this vision.

    --Vladimir Socor
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