What the Kyiv, Chisinau and Tbilisi pledge signalled in July 2021
A look back at a joint statement by three presidents on closer ties with the European Union, and a Belarusian opposition appeal in Washington.
What did three presidents mean to signal as 21 July 2021 approached? Two days earlier, on 19 July 2021, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili issued a joint statement. In it they announced their intention to pursue closer relations with the European Union.
The statement was reported at the time as effectively a rebuke to Russia. The three countries each have their own bilateral relationship with the EU, and the joint format placed them side by side in a single declaration of direction.
A parallel appeal on Belarus
On 20 July 2021, during a visit to Washington, D.C., Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya asked the Biden administration to impose sanctions on companies in Belarus. Her aim was to put pressure on the government of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Taken together, the two developments, reported on consecutive days, showed leaders and opposition figures in Eastern Europe seeking closer engagement with Western partners: one through a collective statement of European ambitions, the other through a call for economic pressure on Minsk.
