Georgia signed the EU Association Agreement including provisions for a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area on 18 July 2014, and it has been applied since 1 September 2014. The Association Agreement came fully into force on 1 July 2016.
On 3 March 2022, Georgia officially applied for EU membership and in June 2022 the European Council indicated that it is ready to grant candidate country status to Georgia once the priorities specified in the European Commission’s opinion on Georgia’s application have been addressed. On 8 November 2023 the European Commission recommended that Georgia be granted the status of a candidate country and this was endorsed by European Council on 14 December 2023 with Georgia granted candidate status on the understanding that the relevant steps are taken.
However, in 2024 the European Council concluded that Georgia’s EU accession process was de facto halted due to democratic backsliding. Since then, the situation has deteriorated, and in the 2025 Enlargement Package the European Commission considered Georgia a candidate country in name only.
Given the current situation, SIGMA does not have any planned activities in Georgia. Previously, SIGMA supported the Georgian authorities in:
- Strengthening monitoring and reporting on the new Public Administration Reform Strategy as well as the management and co-ordination of its implementation.
- Developing the methodology underpinning the Policy Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation handbook
- Developing the civil service legal framework and the Law on Legal Entities of Public Law.
- The development of the public internal financial management and control systems, with a recent focus on developing internal audit certification.
- Implementing the new public procurement law and related procurement activities.
