Confederation: dream or reality?

On July 18 Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, visited Georgia and was hosted by his counterpart in Batumi. Plans for further bilateral relations were discussed in an ordinary way but the elephant in the room was President Saakashvili’s statement about forming a possible confederation with Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev reacted very moderately to this suggestion. Georgian analysts were very negative about it but Azerbaijanis positively welcomed it.

President Saakashvili kept repeating that Azerbaijan has a friendly and good neighbourly attitude towards Georgia, in particular on issues crucial for Tbilisi. He recalled the instances when gas and electricity supplies were cut in the middle of winter and Azerbaijan shared its portion of gas and electricity with the Georgian population. He said, with emotion in his voice, that this gesture in January 2005 would not be forgotten by the Georgian people. The Azerbaijani President was emotional though rather more reserved. “Your success is our success. Georgia is an attractive country for investors and I am happy that Azerbaijani investors are among them," he stated.

Saakashvili had talked already about forming some sort of confederation between the two countries as they are parts of one body. In Georgia the concept of a confederation traditionally has negative connotations. It reminds Georgians of what happened in the spring of 1918, when the three South Caucasus countries, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, unsuccessfully created such a confederation. The Bolshevik Soviet Union soon brought all three under its control.

Western analysts have also suggested a confederation before, claiming that if the region's states unite in a confederation there would be no disputes about their borders and no more conflict regions, as the territorial integrity of each separate country would no longer be an issue. Saakashvili’s idea was mockingly greeted by one Georgian newspaper with the headline: We were Moving Towards Europe and appeared in Azerbaijan. Among the arguments against this proposal is that the Azeri population exceeds the Georgian population by three quarters and Azeri businesses are very active in Georgia, particularly in the energy sector, whereas Georgian products face problems entering the Azeri market. However the fact that the idea has been broached by the President of Georgia will mean it remains on the table for a while to come.

Most analysts think that any kind of confederation, with the EU or Azerbaijan or anybody else, will involve restoring the territorial integrity of the country, either as a precondition or an outcome. Maybe it would be better to form such a confederation with Russia, or Russia and Azerbaijan together, because Russia is occupying Georgian territory. As the Beatles said: Back to the USSR. But such things should not happen on the spur of the moment but rather through a democratic process of referendum following considered expert analysis. There is not likely to be any serious development of this proposal for the time being, but a number of measures, such as possibly selling the main gas pipeline to SOCAR, could be justified by stating that they are part of this possible long term policy goal.