კონფერენცია

∘ Avtandil Sulaberidze ∘ George Aptsiauri ∘
CHALLENGES OF CITIZENS MOBILITY BETWEEN GEORGIA AND EUROPEAN UNION BASED ON FREE VISA LIBERALIZATION POLICY

Annotation.The article reviews the dynamics and major factors of the population migration process of Georgia. The implementation of the obligations of Georgia according to the Agreement on Free Visa Liberalization regime between European Union and Georgia, together with structure of the migrants of Georgia and motivation of potentials migrants and analysis of the legislative basis and institutional changes connected with the activation of the Free Visa Liberalization regime is taken into account.

Keywords: Liberalization, Migration, Readmission, Illegal migration, Legislative acts, Institutional mechanisms, Visa regime, Potential migrants, Migration motivation, Unemployment.

Introduction

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the EU's support for newly established democratic countries has primarily been reflected in their free trade and free movement of citizens agreement in the EU countries, which in turn will promote greater opportunities for education and professional development of the citizens of these countries by using this knowledge and experience for poverty reduction in internal markets.

Since 2014 Georgia (together with Ukraine and Moldova) is an associated member of EU, and in 2016 Georgia signed an agreement with the European Union for a three-month visa free regime.

According to this agreement, Georgia must comply with the obligations taken before the EU, which requires Government to adapt the political - legal legislation of Georgia with international and EU legislation. Despite the successful implementation of some of the obligations taken by Georgia, Illegal migration is still ongoing, which requires improvement of its management mechanisms, etc.

* * *

Georgia belongs to those countries, where the role of the external migration in the formation of its population is significant. In 1992-2018 the population of Georgia has been decreased by 1/3 and currently is equal to 3.7 million citizens. This is a result of large scale waves of migration due to a number of factors: ethnic migration when thousands of ethnic nationalities living in Georgia returned to their historical motherland; migration of thousands of refugees forced to leave their permanent residencies as a result of conflicts; migration for economic reasons because of high level of unemployment and poverty in Georgia.

Migration from Georgia particularly covers those age groups of population that is mostly active and reproductive. As to census of 2014, 85 per cent from total number of migrants were of age between 20 to 50 years old, when share of this age in the population of Georgia consists of only 43 per cent.

The dialog of the EU with Georgia on visa liberalization started in 2012, a year later the Action Plan on Visa Liberalization (VLAP) was submitted to the Georgian Government covering security issues, border control, public order, fundamental human rights and other fields. The requirements of the European Union are allocated in 4 regulations: security of the documents, including biometrical data; integrated management of the border, migration and political asylum; public order and security; foreign relations and fundamental human rights. Two phases determine the activation of the visa liberalization process – adoption of the relevant legislative acts and political provision of these measures in order to adapt the internal legislative basis to the international law standards, first of all the EU norms. The Action Plan also obliges the Government of Georgia to reach a progress in social-economic development since the main provisions of the mentioned Plan cannot control fully the migration process, if the internal environment is not favorable to receive good education and jobs for the citizens.

The visa regime is interconnected with the mechanism of readmission, that provides the EU policy and procedures on return of the migrants illegally crossed the border of the alliance, their forcible deportation and limitation for new entries.

An introduction of a Free Visa regime from 2017 catalyzed the migration process. As to data of Border Protection Department of Georgia after activation of free visa regime 390175 citizens of Georgia visited the EU/Schengen zone during March 2017 - March 2019 (with almost 675000 namber of visits). Trends in dynamics of migration also exposed in gender terms among women and men, in both groups migrants prevailed immigrants. Research Polls showed that migration of Georgian citizens is caused, beside economic problems, by such factors as: education, refugees status, improvement of standard living and so on.

Restricted visa policy affects the development of tourism and originates illegal migration mostly due to social-economic reasons (unemployment, poverty and etc. on domestic market). At the same time the ban of visa regime contributes to the growth of touristic exchanges, reduce the illegal migration. But this process does not grant the reduction of the number of illegal migrants and increase of the migration waves in European Union zone. The beneficiaries of the free visa regime can violate the three months validity of stay and try to find out permanent living and working conditions on the territories of the EU. In other cases the citizens can enter the EU zone with a status of refugees and displaced persons or for educational reasons and claim for political asylum.

For Georgia, like Ukraine and Moldova social-economic and disintegration problems (annexed and occupied territories) can provoke the willingness of the citizens to migrate to Europe. Illegal labor migration from these countries is logical continuation of their national problems. For example a huge number of Georgian illegal migrants in Greece explain their choice by lack of jobs and low level of the wages in their country. These problems can provoke an increase of the number of political asylum claims. As to the Eurostat data as of March 14^th 2018 - 580845 citizens requested the initial political asylum on the territory of the European Union, including 17980 citizens (around 3 per cent) from Georgia, that takes its 10th position, and it is in top three in France, Ireland, Czech Republic and Denmark. Thus, the illegal economic migrants can potentially increase the number of non grounded claims for political asylum. In this respect, the effective system at national and EU levels is important to neutralize this negative trend and the mechanism of forcible readmission plays a key role for the European Alliance. The jump of the number of Illegal migration affects the demographic, economic and political situation in the countries of their origin and invests non stability, particularly in small countries like Georgia. Further studies are needed to make a comprehensive consideration of the mentioned risks.

At present three countries of the Eastern Partnership – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine enjoy free visa short term regime on the territory of the European Union. In fact, almost similar Action Plans and relevant reforming programs were presented for them by the European Community. In this respect, there is a common background of the positive and negative results exposed during the implementation process, including not only territorial problems, but also the problems of social-economic conditions of the population linked with unemployment, poverty that create tensions for the countries of the EU, contributes to organized crime and conflicts between local population and arrived migrants. Some countries, like Hungary even disagree with common strategy of the Alliance on the migration policy and close the door for the refugees coming even on legal basis. Not adequate attention to the resolution of social-economic problems and human rights in the mentioned countries sparked the increase of the number of appeals for political asylum from the citizens of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. Readmission was activated in this respect and European Union expressed its concern based on the possible stoppage of the free visa regime. The Russian factors for all three countries should not be excluded as a major challenge that is not helpful for the full fledged implementation of the free visa liberalization obligations.

Recent trends indicate that there is a decline of potential migration of citizens with old age in parallel with the increase of the motivation of young people, mostly students going to study abroad. According to polls 42.7 per cent expressed their willingness to visit foreign countries. If we take into account the fact that more than 100000 students are registered in Georgia – almost 43-44 per cent of all of them have decided to leave for abroad. Unlike labor migrants, their intention is based on “binary” model - education or work, or both of them, labor motivation dominates for men, when education is more important for women.

Since currently unemployment among young people up to 25 years old is equal to 28.9 per cent and this indicator is two or three times less for the citizens above 25 years old, the risk of leaving abroad for the mentioned group is higher. 26.9 per cent of students decided to leave Georgia for continuation of education only; nevertheless majority of them (59 per cent) intends to do it in combination with work, at the same time females prevail over males in this respect.

Despite the fact, that Georgia successfully continues the legislative reforms, nevertheless the most acute problem is linked with their effective and full - fledged implementation resulted by the activation of readmission and threat of possible stoppage of the liberal visa regime. So the perspectives of the prolongation of the mentioned regime very much depend on the improvement of the existing legislative acts and adoption of new ones.

Legislative enhancement is not sufficient, if it is not strengthened by institutional support also in social and economic field. In this regard, the enhancement of the border protection mechanism alongside with the increase of citizen standard living and decrease of unemployment is decisive in order to lessen the risk of illegal migration and appeals for political asylum. In addition, a new, based on EU standards, mechanism of labor reimbursement and safety should be introduced by the Government of Georgia to remain itself in visa liberalization policy environment.

Conclusions

Despite the advantage of bearing of free visa regime on the territory of the European Union, Georgia has a risk of losing of this opportunity by activation of visa stoppage mechanism. Such a turn can raise the number of illegal visits and appeals for political asylum caused by social-economic and other problems. There is a potential threat of suspension of the free visa regime by the European Union (based on readmission practice} even for law obedient tourists from Georgia due to existing challenges in terms of poverty and unemployment.

Thus, it is crucially important to study the impact of free visa liberalization regime on the increase or decrease on the number of illegal migrants and appeals on political asylum on the territory of the European Union. In this respect, it is essential to study the real reasons of the migration of citizens of Georgia, enforce the reforming of labor reimbursement and create new job opportunities. From other side, make necessary changes in law regulation aimed at blocking the illegal migration activity. At present the Parliament of Georgia is going to adopt these new law procedures.

References

Materials for sociological polls of Ilia State University Institute of Demography and Sociology, “Student-Youth opinions about some issues on migration" 2018.
Decree of the Government of Georgia N59 "On Approval of the Migration Strategy of Georgia", 15 March 2013
Georgian Law of N3418-II on “Labor Migration”, April 1, 2015.
Decree of the Government of Georgia №199 "On Approval of State Strategy for the Formation of the Labor Market of Georgia and Action Plan of Realization of State Strategy for Formation of Labor Market of Georgia", 2013 August 2, Tbilisi.
Decree No.733 of the Government of Georgia "On Approving creation of the Labor Market Information System and its Concept Development and Action Plan”, 26 December 2014, Tbilisi.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Report
The first report of the European Parliament Committee and Council under the visa regime suspension mechanism. 20 December 2017
http://www.geostat.ge/
Migration Profile of Georgia. (2015). Tbilisi, Georgia. http://migration. commission.ge /files/ migration profile_ of_georgia_2015.pdf

10. International Migration Report 2015 Highlights UN New York, 2016

11. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/%20INTECA/%20Resources/257896-1167856389505/ Migration_FullReport.pdf

12. THE IMPACTS OF REMITTANCES ON DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. – European Parliament, 2014. http://www. europarl.europa.eu/Reg Data etudes/etudes/join/2014/ 433786/EXPO-DEVE_ET (2014) 433786EN. pdf

13. Directive 2014/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the conditions of entry and stay of third-country nationals for the purpose of employment as seasonal workers OJ L 94, 28.3.2014.

14. Eurostat, Migration and migrant population statistics – Statistics explained, 17.02.2015. URL:http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php/Migration_ and_migrant_population _statistics.

15. Sulaberidze A. Distorted Migration Temps: Cui Bono? The Caucasus and Globalization. Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. Volume 2. Issue 1 2008.

Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Paata Gugushvili Institute of Economics International Scientific C O N F E R E N C E S "ECONOMY – XXI CENTURY"

E ISSN 2587 - 4691	∘ Avtandil Sulaberidze ∘ George Aptsiauri ∘ CHALLENGES OF CITIZENS MOBILITY BETWEEN GEORGIA AND EUROPEAN UNION BASED ON FREE VISA LIBERALIZATION POLICY *Annotation.The article reviews the dynamics and major factors of the population migration process of Georgia. The implementation of the obligations of Georgia according to the Agreement on Free Visa Liberalization regime between European Union and Georgia, together with structure of the migrants of Georgia and motivation of potentials migrants and analysis of the legislative basis and institutional changes connected with the activation of the Free Visa Liberalization regime is taken into account. Keywords: Liberalization, Migration, Readmission, Illegal migration, Legislative acts, Institutional mechanisms, Visa regime, Potential migrants, Migration motivation, Unemployment.* Introduction After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the EU's support for newly established democratic countries has primarily been reflected in their free trade and free movement of citizens agreement in the EU countries, which in turn will promote greater opportunities for education and professional development of the citizens of these countries by using this knowledge and experience for poverty reduction in internal markets. Since 2014 Georgia (together with Ukraine and Moldova) is an associated member of EU, and in 2016 Georgia signed an agreement with the European Union for a three-month visa free regime. According to this agreement, Georgia must comply with the obligations taken before the EU, which requires Government to adapt the political - legal legislation of Georgia with international and EU legislation. Despite the successful implementation of some of the obligations taken by Georgia, Illegal migration is still ongoing, which requires improvement of its management mechanisms, etc. *** * * Georgia belongs to those countries, where the role of the external migration in the formation of its population is significant. In 1992-2018 the population of Georgia has been decreased by 1/3 and currently is equal to 3.7 million citizens. This is a result of large scale waves of migration due to a number of factors: ethnic migration when thousands of ethnic nationalities living in Georgia returned to their historical motherland; migration of thousands of refugees forced to leave their permanent residencies as a result of conflicts; migration for economic reasons because of high level of unemployment and poverty in Georgia. Migration from Georgia particularly covers those age groups of population that is mostly active and reproductive. As to census of 2014, 85 per cent from total number of migrants were of age between 20 to 50 years old, when share of this age in the population of Georgia consists of only 43 per cent. The dialog of the EU with Georgia on visa liberalization started in 2012, a year later the Action Plan on Visa Liberalization (VLAP) was submitted to the Georgian Government covering security issues, border control, public order, fundamental human rights and other fields. The requirements of the European Union are allocated in 4 regulations: security of the documents, including biometrical data; integrated management of the border, migration and political asylum; public order and security; foreign relations and fundamental human rights. Two phases determine the activation of the visa liberalization process – adoption of the relevant legislative acts and political provision of these measures in order to adapt the internal legislative basis to the international law standards, first of all the EU norms. The Action Plan also obliges the Government of Georgia to reach a progress in social-economic development since the main provisions of the mentioned Plan cannot control fully the migration process, if the internal environment is not favorable to receive good education and jobs for the citizens. The visa regime is interconnected with the mechanism of readmission, that provides the EU policy and procedures on return of the migrants illegally crossed the border of the alliance, their forcible deportation and limitation for new entries. An introduction of a Free Visa regime from 2017 catalyzed the migration process. As to data of Border Protection Department of Georgia after activation of free visa regime 390175 citizens of Georgia visited the EU/Schengen zone during March 2017 - March 2019 (with almost 675000 namber of visits). Trends in dynamics of migration also exposed in gender terms among women and men, in both groups migrants prevailed immigrants. Research Polls showed that migration of Georgian citizens is caused, beside economic problems, by such factors as: education, refugees status, improvement of standard living and so on. Restricted visa policy affects the development of tourism and originates illegal migration mostly due to social-economic reasons (unemployment, poverty and etc. on domestic market). At the same time the ban of visa regime contributes to the growth of touristic exchanges, reduce the illegal migration. But this process does not grant the reduction of the number of illegal migrants and increase of the migration waves in European Union zone. The beneficiaries of the free visa regime can violate the three months validity of stay and try to find out permanent living and working conditions on the territories of the EU. In other cases the citizens can enter the EU zone with a status of refugees and displaced persons or for educational reasons and claim for political asylum. For Georgia, like Ukraine and Moldova social-economic and disintegration problems (annexed and occupied territories) can provoke the willingness of the citizens to migrate to Europe. Illegal labor migration from these countries is logical continuation of their national problems. For example a huge number of Georgian illegal migrants in Greece explain their choice by lack of jobs and low level of the wages in their country. These problems can provoke an increase of the number of political asylum claims. As to the Eurostat data as of March 14^th 2018 - 580845 citizens requested the initial political asylum on the territory of the European Union, including 17980 citizens (around 3 per cent) from Georgia, that takes its 10th position, and it is in top three in France, Ireland, Czech Republic and Denmark. Thus, the illegal economic migrants can potentially increase the number of non grounded claims for political asylum. In this respect, the effective system at national and EU levels is important to neutralize this negative trend and the mechanism of forcible readmission plays a key role for the European Alliance. The jump of the number of Illegal migration affects the demographic, economic and political situation in the countries of their origin and invests non stability, particularly in small countries like Georgia. Further studies are needed to make a comprehensive consideration of the mentioned risks. At present three countries of the Eastern Partnership – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine enjoy free visa short term regime on the territory of the European Union. In fact, almost similar Action Plans and relevant reforming programs were presented for them by the European Community. In this respect, there is a common background of the positive and negative results exposed during the implementation process, including not only territorial problems, but also the problems of social-economic conditions of the population linked with unemployment, poverty that create tensions for the countries of the EU, contributes to organized crime and conflicts between local population and arrived migrants. Some countries, like Hungary even disagree with common strategy of the Alliance on the migration policy and close the door for the refugees coming even on legal basis. Not adequate attention to the resolution of social-economic problems and human rights in the mentioned countries sparked the increase of the number of appeals for political asylum from the citizens of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. Readmission was activated in this respect and European Union expressed its concern based on the possible stoppage of the free visa regime. The Russian factors for all three countries should not be excluded as a major challenge that is not helpful for the full fledged implementation of the free visa liberalization obligations. Recent trends indicate that there is a decline of potential migration of citizens with old age in parallel with the increase of the motivation of young people, mostly students going to study abroad. According to polls 42.7 per cent expressed their willingness to visit foreign countries. If we take into account the fact that more than 100000 students are registered in Georgia – almost 43-44 per cent of all of them have decided to leave for abroad. Unlike labor migrants, their intention is based on “binary” model - education or work, or both of them, labor motivation dominates for men, when education is more important for women. Since currently unemployment among young people up to 25 years old is equal to 28.9 per cent and this indicator is two or three times less for the citizens above 25 years old, the risk of leaving abroad for the mentioned group is higher. 26.9 per cent of students decided to leave Georgia for continuation of education only; nevertheless majority of them (59 per cent) intends to do it in combination with work, at the same time females prevail over males in this respect. Despite the fact, that Georgia successfully continues the legislative reforms, nevertheless the most acute problem is linked with their effective and full - fledged implementation resulted by the activation of readmission and threat of possible stoppage of the liberal visa regime. So the perspectives of the prolongation of the mentioned regime very much depend on the improvement of the existing legislative acts and adoption of new ones. Legislative enhancement is not sufficient, if it is not strengthened by institutional support also in social and economic field. In this regard, the enhancement of the border protection mechanism alongside with the increase of citizen standard living and decrease of unemployment is decisive in order to lessen the risk of illegal migration and appeals for political asylum. In addition, a new, based on EU standards, mechanism of labor reimbursement and safety should be introduced by the Government of Georgia to remain itself in visa liberalization policy environment. Conclusions Despite the advantage of bearing of free visa regime on the territory of the European Union, Georgia has a risk of losing of this opportunity by activation of visa stoppage mechanism. Such a turn can raise the number of illegal visits and appeals for political asylum caused by social-economic and other problems. There is a potential threat of suspension of the free visa regime by the European Union (based on readmission practice} even for law obedient tourists from Georgia due to existing challenges in terms of poverty and unemployment. Thus, it is crucially important to study the impact of free visa liberalization regime on the increase or decrease on the number of illegal migrants and appeals on political asylum on the territory of the European Union. In this respect, it is essential to study the real reasons of the migration of citizens of Georgia, enforce the reforming of labor reimbursement and create new job opportunities. From other side, make necessary changes in law regulation aimed at blocking the illegal migration activity. At present the Parliament of Georgia is going to adopt these new law procedures. References** Materials for sociological polls of Ilia State University Institute of Demography and Sociology, “Student-Youth opinions about some issues on migration" 2018. Decree of the Government of Georgia N59 "On Approval of the Migration Strategy of Georgia", 15 March 2013 Georgian Law of N3418-II on “Labor Migration”, April 1, 2015. Decree of the Government of Georgia №199 "On Approval of State Strategy for the Formation of the Labor Market of Georgia and Action Plan of Realization of State Strategy for Formation of Labor Market of Georgia", 2013 August 2, Tbilisi. Decree No.733 of the Government of Georgia "On Approving creation of the Labor Market Information System and its Concept Development and Action Plan”, 26 December 2014, Tbilisi. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Report The first report of the European Parliament Committee and Council under the visa regime suspension mechanism. 20 December 2017 http://www.geostat.ge/ Migration Profile of Georgia. (2015). Tbilisi, Georgia. http://migration. commission.ge /files/ migration profile_ of_georgia_2015.pdf 10. International Migration Report 2015 Highlights UN New York, 2016 11. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/%20INTECA/%20Resources/257896-1167856389505/ Migration_FullReport.pdf 12. THE IMPACTS OF REMITTANCES ON DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. – European Parliament, 2014. http://www. europarl.europa.eu/Reg Data etudes/etudes/join/2014/ 433786/EXPO-DEVE_ET (2014) 433786EN. pdf 13. Directive 2014/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the conditions of entry and stay of third-country nationals for the purpose of employment as seasonal workers OJ L 94, 28.3.2014. 14. Eurostat, Migration and migrant population statistics – Statistics explained, 17.02.2015. URL:http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php/Migration_ and_migrant_population _statistics. 15. Sulaberidze A. Distorted Migration Temps: Cui Bono? The Caucasus and Globalization. Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. Volume 2. Issue 1 2008.