Exclusive Interview with British MP Denis MacShane

British Parliamentary Deputy MacShane says that for the immediate future, Georgia’s likelihood of joining the European Union “cannot be said to be very strong,” but the former British minister of Europe said Georgia is headed along the right path.

Still, MacShane insists, Georgia’s barriers to its integration with Europe lie in the incomplete nature of its own reforms, not in its outstanding issues with Russia, a country he says has “no veto and not even any voice within the European Union.”  Mentioning the case of Cyprus and Western Germany, he underlines that there is a precedent for partially occupied countries joining the Union, but that membership is not a cure-all.

“Sadly, if there isn’t movement, and everyone sticks rigidly to their position and says, ‘I’m 100 percent right, and they’re 100 percent wrong,’ then in 40 years time you can maybe still see Russian soldiers occupying different regions of Georgia and Abkhazia,” he said.