On April 24, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte released the Secretary General’s Annual Report for 2024, outlining the organization’s key achievements and priorities over the past year. The report’s coverage of and language on Georgia is limited to describing practical cooperation over the past year, but omits political aspects of integration, such as the 2008 Bucharest Summit’s commitment to Georgia’s eventual membership or the country’s status as a NATO aspirant.
Georgia is featured in several sections of the document, such as defense capacity building, institutional reform and the Alliance’s engagement in the South Caucasus, but is absent from the section on the Open Door policy.
The report mentions Georgia’s involvement in NATO’s initiatives aimed at strengthening partner capabilities, such as its participation in the Building Integrity programme, which provides tools and methodologies to promote transparency and institutional resilience in the defense sector. Georgia also remains a focus of NATO’s engagement in the South Caucasus, where the Alliance reaffirmed its support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of partner nations in the region.
“NATO and Georgia also continued their practical cooperation to strengthen Georgia’s security and defence capabilities and enhance interoperability with the Alliance,” the report says noting Georgia’s participation in CWIX24, the Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXercise held in Poland in June, and the deployment of Georgian Border Police personnel to Operation Sea Guardian in September 2024 — Georgia’s second rotation as an operational partner in the maritime security mission.
Under NATO’s efforts to boost training and capacity building, Georgia has been one of eight partners benefiting from tailored assistance aimed at strengthening defense and security capacities. Since, 2014 NATO Wales Summit, and as of the end of 2024, Allies and partners had donated to recipient partner states, including Georgia, nearly EUR 88 million toward this initiative. The report emphasizes that assistance is based on “several key principles: tailoring assistance to partners’ individual needs and circumstances; focusing on sustainability and long-term effect; deploying NATO’s unique subject-matter expertise; and giving partners ownership.”
The report further notes that NATO maintains structured bilateral relationships, including Georgia, with 16 partners in the Euro-Atlantic region through the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Programe.
Notably absent from the report is any mention of NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit commitment that Georgia will become a NATO member. The same omission applies to Ukraine. Last year’s – 2023 Secretary General’s report referred to Georgia as “one of NATO’s closest partners” and “an aspiring member of the Alliance.”
The Secretary General’s 2022 report had included language on the political commitment to Georgia’s NATO membership, stating: “Allies remain committed to supporting the eventual NATO membership of Georgia and Ukraine, in line with the decisions taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit and reaffirmed at the 2022 Madrid Summit.”
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