When External Incentives Fail: Georgia’s De-Europeanization and the Impact of Political Will

External incentives model (EIM) is one of the most powerful frameworks that explain why countries implement reforms required by the EU conditionality policy. Particularly important is the credibility of the membership promise. The more credible it is that the country can become an EU member, the more motivated the national governments feel to implement reforms. The case of Georgia, however, questions some of the assumptions of the external incentives model. What we observe in Georgia is the opposite relationship between the credibility of the membership promise and the government’s willingness to implement reforms. In 2022 when the EU enlargement debates received a new spark against the background of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the Georgian government unexpectedly became reluctant to submit a membership application even though two years before the ruling party ran on the electoral platform that they would apply for the EU membership by 2024. With mounting public pressure, the government applied for the membership and Georgia received the membership perspective a few months later and the candidate status at the end of 2023. However, this progress on the formal stages of accession, which is an indication of increased credibility of the membership promise, has had countereffects on what the EIM would expect. In fact, almost a year later, Georgian government essentially halted the accession process. What explains this puzzling development? Contextualizing Georgia’s Europeanization and analyzing speeches and statements of the representative of the Georgian ruling party, this paper makes a case for the centrality of the political will. EIM assumes the political will of the national government, but when conditionality requires reforms that can loosen the government’s grip on political power, the increased credibility of promise can produce the opposite effect, i.e., de-Europeanization.