Thousands of NATO troops are training with artillery in Finland just 100 kilometers from the Russian border. Soldiers from more than 20 nations are deployed in one of the largest drills in the organization's recent history. RFE/RL's Olena Abramovych reports from Rovajarvi as Finland hosts its first such exercise since joining NATO in 2023.
Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: what the EU can do about Georgia and the potential changes 2025 will bring for people entering the EU.
Note to Readers: You can now listen to my briefings by clicking on the audio link below. We're actually using an AI version of my voice and would love to know what you think -- and, of course, what we can improve.
What You Need To Know: More than three weeks after the Georgian parliamentary elections, which saw the ruling Georgian Dream party winning with 54 percent of the vote but has also led to opposition protests and a boycott of parliament, the European Union remains unsure of how to react.
Generally speaking, this is connected to three things: a paucity of options going forward, divisions within the EU, and a lack of clarity over what actually took place on election day and during the run-up to the parliamentary vote.
The EU was cautious in its first statement after the vote, quoting the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary findings and noting that "irregularities" had occurred. Three days later, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell ramped up the pressure somewhat with another statement asking for a transparent inquiry and noting that international observers "have also not declared the elections to be free and fair."
Then, at a debate on the Georgian elections in the European Parliament on November 13, came the strongest rebuke so far of the ruling authorities in Tbilisi when European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said that "these elections were marked by serious irregularities, with violations reported both during the election campaign and the election day itself. These elections fall short of the standards expected of a country holding EU candidate status."
Deep Background: Yet, the EU already seems to be forgetting about Georgia. You could see it at the summits in Budapest in early November. Attending the European Political Community (EPC) summit in the Hungarian capital, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze took the floor after warm congratulations from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had raced to Tbilisi directly after the elections to celebrate Georgian Dream's success and thus publicly breaking the EU's unity.
In Budapest, Kobakhidze reportedly criticized "some Europeans" for expressing their disappointment at the election result, called for Georgia to be treated fairly by the EU, and said that the opposition didn't enjoy the support of the Georgian people. The Georgian leader spoke at the end of the meeting, and, with Orban only giving the floor to non-EU country leaders, there were no direct reactions to his speech.
EU leaders were supposed to discuss Georgia in depth on the second day of the EPC summit, but the reelection of Donald Trump as U.S. president and a presentation by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on the bloc's competitiveness dominated the proceedings. That day, only the Estonian and Lithuanian leaders mentioned Georgia at all.
Diplomats I spoke to were a little peeved that European Council President Charles Michel had a bilateral meeting with Kobakhidze but didn't mention anything about that meeting or about Georgia at the final press conference. That meeting was described by a senior EU official who wasn't authorized to speak on the record as lasting "less than 10 minutes" and Michel, according to the diplomat, expressed "deep concerns" about alleged electoral violations and called for an investigation.
Drilling Down:
What You Need To Know: The weekend before last could have been the big unveiling of the EU's new Entry/Exit System (EES). This new system will mean that when a non-EU citizen crosses any border or enters any airport or harbor in 25 EU countries (all the member states apart from Cyprus and Ireland) and four non-EU countries (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein), they would have to register their full name, nationality, and have their fingerprints and photo taken, possibly in a newly installed self-service kiosk.
The EES has been in the works ever since it was approved by the EU in late 2017 and will do away with the manual stamping of non-EU passports, replacing the old system with a large electronic database. According to the European Commission, the EES will help prevent irregular migration, help third-country nationals travel more easily, plus identify attempts at overstaying or identity fraud. Yet the grand unveiling never happened, not on November 10 as planned, nor on the back-up date, November 17.
Deep Background: To be fair, the dates were never actually set in stone. There was also vaguer talk of it happening sometime in the final quarter of this year. And it also wasn't the first time it was delayed. In 2020, it was the coronavirus pandemic that prevented it. Then, in 2022 and 2023, the new system still wasn't ready.
So why the constant delays? A generous answer is that this is a massive IT undertaking and the technology is untested at this scale. When, back in October, interior ministers agreed that a November rollout wasn't possible, it was France, Germany, and the Netherlands -- three member states with multiple entry points -- that were putting on the brakes.
The German Interior Ministry noted then that the central computer system underpinning the EES, which is overseen by the EU agency eu-LISA, lacked "the necessary stability and functionality."
An EU diplomat familiar with the issue was more brutal, telling me that the entire system was "shoddy" and complaining about a lack of testing before the official launch. While eu-LISA has said that all EU member states were technically ready, there were widespread fears that the new system would create chaos at the continent's key hubs, hitting crucial business and tourism with massive border queues.
There is a fear among EU officials that the teething issues with a system of such magnitude run the risk of causing massive reputational damage, potentially jeopardizing years of planning.
Drilling Down:
On November 22, the interior ministers of Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, and Romania will assemble to try to iron out the final details of the latter two countries' full entry into the Schengen zone. Since the start of this year, both countries are part of Schengen when it comes to air and maritime travel but not land crossings, with Vienna blocking it due to migration concerns. There are indications, though, that a deal can be struck, which would mean EU ministers could finally give an official green light when they meet in Brussels on December 12.
That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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The Wider Europe newsletter briefs you every Tuesday morning on key issues concerning the EU, NATO, and other institutions’ relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe’s Eastern neighborhoods.
For more than a decade as a correspondent in Brussels, Rikard Jozwiak covered all the major events and crises related to the EU’s neighborhood and how various Western institutions reacted to them -- the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17, dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, the EU and NATO enlargement processes in the Western Balkans, as well as visa liberalizations, free-trade deals, and countless summits.
Now out of the “Brussels bubble,” but still looking in -- this time from the heart of Europe, in Prague -- he continues to focus on the countries where Brussels holds huge sway, but also faces serious competition from other players, such as Russia and, increasingly, China.
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