EU bogged down in Georgia

A picture from EU Monitoring Mission to Georgia (EUMM) official website captures its current predicament perfectly - bogged down in the native mud, it has only low-tech options for finding the way out, and even when such solutions are on offer, the EUMM itself keeps to the sidelines.

The 200-something deployment is huge by pre-August 2008 standards. It was seen as a breakthrough by the Georgian authorities who hoped the EU presence would help mitigate Russia's military stranglehold on two separatist regions - South Ossetia and Abkhazia, now occupied by the Russian forces.

In reality, however, the EUMM is reduced to the role of guarding - with their lives as the Russian Foreign Minister predicted - the Moscow-imposed border between Georgia and its two provinces.

Does Europe really need 200 people to do this meager job? This is a question that the EU is likely to answer negatively. Georgia's calls to further increase EUMM and spread its mandate into S.Ossetia and Abkhazia make sense, but are unlikely to be implemented against Russia's will. Come February - when the contracts for most of the EUMM officers are set to expire - Georgia might see the numbers of monitors diminish.

Russia managed to block the presence of OSCE Monitors in S.Ossetia and is working to further incapacitate a toothles UN presence in Abkhazia (UNOMIG). In 2009, the Georgian authorities might have to face the Russian troops and their armed proteges across a precarious border - and with no witnesses.