On 27 June, 2014, Georgia, along with Ukraine and Moldova, signed a formal Association Agreement (AA) with the EU, which both sides hope will increase diplomatic, economic and political ties between the EU and its neighbours. The EU brought the signing ceremony forward after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and against a background of worsening conflict in Ukraine’s east.
Days later, on Tbilisi’s Europe Square, the Georgian Patriarch joined a jubilant Georgian Prime Minister and President in a rare joint appearance to give joyous praise of Georgia’s reunion with Europe. Before a massive audience and against a backdrop of Georgian and EU flags, opera singers and dancers celebrated what the Prime Minister called an irreversible union after hundreds of years of ‘artificial’ separation.
Georgia's choice
For many Georgians not on the square, and who may not have heard of the AA (and a Caucasus Research Resource Centers survey in 2013 suggested 79% of them hadn’t), the question was: what would the agreement bring them?
