Legislative elections were held in Georgia on 26 October 2024 whilst Moldova witnessed presidential elections – as well as a constitutional EU membership referendum – on 20 October and 3 November, respectively. Both elections were of crucial importance in regards to the two countries’ future domestic political trajectory and their EU integration pathway.
Faced with numerous irregularities, elections in Georgia saw the ruling Georgian Dream party claim victory and the opposition cry foul. In Moldova, and in spite of unprecedented external interference and wide-ranging attempts to significantly influence the elections and the referendum, the reform-minded, pro-European incumbent Maia SANDU won a second term and a knife-edge majority of Moldovans voted in favour of constitutional change.
What to make of these elections, how to interpret their pursuit and presumptive meddling, and what do the results mean for the democratic future and European trajectory of both Georgia and Moldova?
These were many more questions that were addressed in the framework of a conversation between Ms Paula ERIZANU and Prof. Dr Adam ŁAZOWSKI, moderated by Prof. Dr Tobias SCHUMACHER, on 25 November at the College of Europe in Natolin.
About the speakers:
Paula ERIZANU is a writer and journalist from Chisinau, Moldova. She studied History with Literature and History of Art at the New College of the Humanities in London and Journalism at City University London. She collaborates with prestigious publications such as the BBC, The Guardian, London Review of Books, Financial Times etc. She was shortlisted for the Culture Journalist of the Year award in 2019 in the UK's Words by Women competition. Her first book, This Is My First Revolution. Steal It (Cartier, 2011) was a creative non fiction account of the 2009 pro-democracy protests in Moldova, which won the 'Most Beautiful Book Production' prize in Leipzig, offered by UNESCO Germany. Ms ERIZANU then published a volume of poetry, Take Care (Charmides, 2015) and co-edited, in collaboration with Alina PURCARU, the pioneering three-part anthology A Century of Romanian Poetry Written by Women (Cartier, 2019-2021). For her feminist historical novel The Woods Are Burning (Cartier, 2021), Paula ERIZANU received the 'Young Writer of the Year 2022' award at the Young Writers Gala in Bucharest, Romania.
Professor Dr Adam ŁAZOWSKI is Scientific Coordinator of the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair and Visiting Professor at Natolin. Also, he is Professor of EU law at the Westminster Law School, University of Westminster and Visiting Professor at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. His research focuses on EU pre-accession policy, EU External Relations, Internal Market, EU Criminal Law as well as withdrawal from the European Union. On the latter topic Prof. Łazowski has published extensively in academic journals, such as, for example, European Law Review, Public Law, and the Journal of European Public Policy, and edited volumes with, inter alia, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. His monograph on legal parameters of EU exit will be published in 2025 (Edward Elgar Publishing). He is also a co-editor (with Graham Butler) of ‘Shaping EU Law the British Way: UK Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union’ (2022, Hart Publishing), a co-editor (with Adam Cygan) of ‘Research Handbook on Legal Aspects of Brexit’ (2022, Edward Elgar Publishing), and co-editor (with Catherine Barnard and Daniel Sarmiento) of ‘Pursuit of Harmony in a Turbulent Europe. Essays in Honour of Eleanor Sharpston’ (2024, Hart Publishing).
Professor Dr Tobias SCHUMACHER is Senior Professorial Fellow at the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at Natolin and Professor of European Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He is deputy coordinator of the international research project ‘REDEMOS - Reconfiguring EU Democracy Support towards a Sustained Demos in the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood’, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. His research focuses on EU external action with a geographical focus on Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and the Middle East and North Africa. Likewise, he works on political transition and peace and conflict-related dynamics in these regions. He has published extensively in these fields in renowned academic journals, such as, for example, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, Geopolitics, Democratization, and Mediterranean Politics. Also, he has co-edited numerous volumes, such as ‘The European Union and its Eastern Neighbourhood. Whither ‘Eastern Partnership’ (with Andriy TYUSHKA, 2022, Routledge), and ‘The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy’ (2017, with Dimitris BOURIS, Palgrave). He is the lead editor of ‘The Routledge Handbook of the European Neighbourhood Policy’ (2018, with Andreas MARCHETTI and Thomas DEMMELHUBER, Routledge), and his latest article on ‘EU external differentiated integration in aviation and trade: what drives southern neighbours?’ is forthcoming in West European Politics.
Photos credits: Gates - Chisinau, Moldova by ...your local connection & The views from the Narikala fortress. Tbilisi, Georgia, by Marcin Konsek.