ABSTRACT
On 18th November 2008, the European Union chaired the first talks between the warring parties over the future of two autonomous provinces in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The aim of the meeting in Geneva was to establish a diplomatic process to restore peace in one of the most fragile regions on the near periphery of Europe. Two months previously Russian troops had invaded the territory of its neighbour Georgia as a result of armed clashes over one of the provinces, South Ossetia. The short ‘August war’, which took place between 7th and 13th August 2008 was the worst outbreak of conflict in the Caucasus for 14 years, and the first time that Moscow had resorted to open force against a former member of the Soviet Union. It raised the spectre of inter-state conflict on the very fringes of the European Union. High-level talks were seen as one way in which a ceasefire could be turned into a more durable peace, and it was also one way of avoiding an EastWest stand-off between Europe and the United States on the one hand, and Russia on the other. Another way was pursued by the European Union, in a role as chief peacemaker, to intervene directly on the ground, which it did with an ESDP mission, deployed six weeks earlier in October.
