EU-integration advice: Dos and Don’ts from President of Estonia

What is the first thing a country should do to get itself into the European Union (EU)? This question, absolutely crucial for all countries seeking EU membership, was answered by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves in the Georgian capital Tbilisi today. His opinion was critical, as Estonia joined the EU in 2004.

"If you don’t let us into the EU, we are going to collapse” is the worst argument to make, said Ilves, a politician with a journalism and diplomacy background who stands behind Estonia’s impressive transformation from a post-Soviet country into a EU member state.

Instead, "standing on your own”, "being an independent country” and "surviving” is the "whole point” of getting into the EU, he suggested.

President Ilves spoke in front of diplomatic corps, civil society members and students at a panel discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council of Georgia and the Estonian Embassy in Tbilisi today. The Eastern Partnership (EaP) Summit in Riga, modern state-building challenges and Georgia’s European perspective were the focus of his speech.

Estonian President Ilves speaks at the panel discussion on "Walking the European Path. Challenges of State Building" in Tbilisi on June 3, 2015. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

"I know after the Riga Summit there is little bit of dissatisfaction with the outcome … because people wanted more,” he said and added that when Estonia and Poland signed their Association Agreements (AA) with the EU in 1995 and 1991 respectively, no political statement about these countries’ European perspective was made in the EU by that time.

"There was no political brouhaha, but […] Poland and Estonia joined the EU in 2004,” Ilves said.

"So Poland’s path was 13 years, our path was nine years and there was no statement about joining the EU. I think less attention should be paid to what the statement is. So maybe you are dissatisfied with the speed at which your country is moving towards the EU but the point is to keep moving.”

When asked about the Summit outcomes, the President told Agenda.ge: "I would have preferred a much stronger message [by the EU regarding Georgia and Ukraine] but the EU is a consensus based organisation. What comes out is what everyone agrees to. It’s not what one country thinks; different countries have different opinions. […] The point is that you get what you get out of the EU.”

Diplomatic corps, civil society members and students attended the panel discussion with President Ilves in Tbilisi on June 3, 2015. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Ilves, a Sweden-born and US-educated psychologist who was 31 years old when he first visited the country he is now the president of, believed one thing was "absolutely crucial” for a successful state-building process - Differentiation between what is political and what is not.

He named Estonia as an example of a successful state in this regard and said: "There is a ministry and a lot of civil servants work there. […] When a government changes, nothing changes in the civil service [in Estonia]”.

In contrary to this, he said every time a government changed in some countries, even the cleaning ladies were changed.

"So every time you start all over again and there is no continuity, you have no historical memory,” he said, which he believed was one of the main challenges of state-building.

Visa free travel to the EU was another subject of high public interest in Georgia. After the Riga Summit Georgia was promised it would enjoy visa liberalisation if it completed all technical details by the end of this year. The Estonian President reconfirmed this and said: "It’s all about getting stuff done and dealing with technical issues. And what is needed to be done for visa liberalisation is really a technical matter. This decision, as well as many, many other decisions in the EU, will be based more on technical issues and how well you deal with things .[…] it sounds boring and technical but that’s what the EU is all about. Dealing with boring technical issues is the EU.”

Diplomatic corps listen to the President of Estonia speaking on challenges of state building in Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Today’s panel took place in the framework of President Ilves’ official two-day visit to Georgia, which saw him come to the country for the fifth time during his two presidential terms.

Meanwhile President Ilves was one of a group of European leaders who came to Georgia and supported the country after the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008.