The EU's heavy burden in Georgia

After the war last summer, an informal division of labour emerged between three international monitoring missions.

The 220-strong EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) was denied access to either Abkhazia or South Ossetia by Russia, which controls the two breakaway provinces. Responsibility for Abkhazia was therefore left to Unomig, the UN's 130-strong mission, which was observing a 1994 ceasefire between Russian-backed separatists and Georgia, while the OSCE monitored a 1992 ceasefire in South Ossetia with 20 staff.

This set-up has now collapsed. EU foreign ministers last Monday (27 July) extended the EUMM's mandate to September 2010 – but it is now the only international mission in Georgia.

Both the UN and the OSCE have left Georgia in recent weeks after Russia, a member of both organisations, blocked a renewed mandate in June. The veto came as a “shock”, according to Pierre Morel (pictured), the EU envoy for the crisis in Georgia, and the EUMM is now “needed more than ever”.

The mission's lack of access to the two regions is a serious problem. The Georgians are anxious to have Americans and perhaps Turks included in the EUMM, a mission over which Russia has no authority. But both the US and the EU stress that talks are at a preliminary stage.    

The Geneva talks

The withdrawal of the UN and OSCE missions from Georgia could have implications for their co-chairmanship, together with the EU, of the Geneva security talks, which began last October and are to go into their seventh round, on 17 September.

Russia and its two client territories have now indicated that the role of the UN and OSCE ought to be re-assessed since they are no longer on the ground. The talks have so far focused on security and have not touched on the political or constitutional status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.