Visa Liberalization and the Georgian Scholar Michel Mouskhély

Abstract

For the first time in Georgian historiography, this study critically examines newly accessed archival documents, foreign scholarly literature, and French press materials to explore the early stage of the idea of visa liberalization and to establish the role of the Georgian scholar Michel Mouskhély in its intellectual formation.

 The study aims to investigate how Mouskhély’s scholarly and theoretical arguments were connected to practical political initiatives and to assess the significance of his contributions for the strategic objectives of Georgia’s European integration. Michel Mouskhély (1903–1964) — a Georgian émigré jurist, professor at the University of Strasbourg, and one of the early theorists of European federalism — belongs to the rare figures whose work organically integrates the Georgian intellectual tradition with the Western academic space. His academic and public activities were devoted to the legal and institutional foundations of European unity.

Mouskhély (Mikheil Mushelishvili) directed the student march in his capacity as a professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he enjoyed considerable prestige. In 1932, he acquired French citizenship and integrated into the French intellectual milieu under the name Michel Mouskhély (Journal officiel de la République française, 22 May 1932). In July 1959, under his leadership, the Centre for Research on the U.S.S.R. and Eastern European Countries (Centre de recherches sur l’U.R.S.S. et les pays de l’Est) was established at the University of Strasbourg, becoming one of the foremost academic platforms for Soviet studies in Western Europe (Revue française de sociologie, №1-2, 1960, pp. 221–222). At the University of Strasbourg, M. Mouskhély was affectionately referred to as “our Georgian” (“Notre Géorgien”) (Excerpts from a letter by M. Pierre Winkler, Consul Général de France, 9 May, Service des archives Institut Lebel, bureau 037 H, personal file of Michel Mouskhély, University of Strasbourg).

 The theoretical framework of the research is based on the legal foundations of European integration, which trace back to the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The study emphasizes that the idea of free movement is not merely the outcome of institutional development but was preceded by a series of legal norms and intellectual discourses in which Mouskhély played a particularly significant role. Special attention is given to the student march organized on August 6, 1950, at the French-German border in Saint-Germainshof, of which Mouskhély was both an initiator and ideologue. This event, whose main slogan was “Europe is the present,” symbolically represented the ideas of border removal and free movement and may be regarded as a conceptual precursor to visa liberalization.

 The study also notes that the visa liberalization regime for Georgia came into effect on March 28, 2017, marking a significant achievement in the country’s path toward European integration. Visa liberalization, as an instrument of contemporary European policy, should not be viewed solely as a phenomenon of the twenty-first century; it rests on earlier intellectual and political ideas to which Michel Mouskhély made a substantial contribution. This fact underscores the particular importance of Georgia’s place in the historical and theoretical narrative of European integration.