A few weeks ago, speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili floated the idea of Georgia joining the Eurasian Union. Although he later backtracked on his statements, the cat was out of the bag.
Predictably, the United National Movement slammed
Everyone demands something from the state budget: pensioners – increased pensions, public sector employees – higher salaries, socially needed – adequate social assistance, everyone else – free healthcare, education, etc. Not many of them realize that there is no
We often hear pre-election promises of various political parties that envisage increasing pensions to equal the subsistence minimum. Such promises enjoy a positive reaction from society, however the necessity of a pension reform in the country is underestimated and is
Georgia is an energy dependent country – with 65% of energy demand being covered from external sources. Despite the richness in hydropower resources Georgia still has a negative balance even in electricity import-export. Energy dependence has a negative impact
Public officials’ remuneration is regarded one of the most important aspects for the functioning of public offices both in Georgia and elsewhere in the World. Issues such as effective fight against corruption in public office, attracting qualified candidates to government jobs,
During the planning process of the state budget, a 6% real economic growth was predicted; however the civil society and political circles are questioning the feasibility of achieving 6% growth rate and performance of the planned budgetary revenues.
According to the
Establishing true local self-government was one of the new Government of Georgia’s major pre-election promises. The ambitious goal of creating local self-governing units is now part of the government’s strategy. In Georgia’s two decades of independence, no other
I can think of a number of demonstrations over the past few years when the police arrested participants for blocking traffic and violating the public order. However, today, I would like to draw your attention to the latest incident of May 1, 2013 in which the question
The May 17 incident and its subsequent developments should be discussed in two paradigms: the legal and the socio-cultural. The legal aspect relates to the state, whereas the socio-cultural is linked to society, in particular the existing social and cultural structures.
For eight years, long before the 2008 war, I served as Ambassador of Georgia to Washington. At the time, the main issue at hand was capacity-building: to think in terms of policies, allocating competencies and tasks, preparing the normative ground, pinpointing