Europe Is Ready to Play Hardball With Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia—Last December, the European Union granted Georgia candidate status for EU membership. Now the bloc is deeply at odds with Tbilisi after the ruling Georgian Dream party passed a controversial bill that has triggered protests in the streets of the capital and continuous violent clashes between demonstrators and the police, which has used tear gas, water cannons, and even rubber bullets, at times, to quash the protests. The EU is now preparing to use hardball tactics of its own in response.

The so-called foreign agents bill, which is strikingly similar to legislation introduced by Russia in 2012 to target critics of the Kremlin, will require all organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from other countries to register with the Georgian Justice Ministry as agents of foreign influence. Georgia’s government defended the bill by arguing that it is needed to increase transparency, defend against “pseudo-liberal values” promoted by foreigners, and protect the country’s sovereignty. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who announced on May 19 that she had vetoed it. But her decision can be overridden by another vote in parliament.

The government had backed down on the introduction of such a law in March 2023 after a substantially identical bill was likewise met by street protests and criticism from the EU. But after Europe subsequently expressed its favorable opinion on the country’s EU candidate status in December, the ruling party defiantly reintroduced the bill in April and passed it the following month despite the reiterated calls by the EU, the United States and other Western allies and international organizations to withdraw it—calls that have only gotten louder amid widespread acts of intimidation against media and members of civic groups.

The EU is treading a fine line on its opposition to the law. On the one hand, it cannot accept the legislation as it is because it is against the bloc’s core values and laws, by which Georgia has to abide in order to become a member. On the other, it cannot ignore the loud calls by Georgian civic groups, many of which are financed by European entities and see EU membership as the only hope for democratic progress in the country and keeping it from drifting away toward the Russian orbit. More than 80 percent of Georgians support membership to the EU, which is also enshrined as an ambition in the country’s constitution.

“The adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the EU path. The choice on the way forward is in Georgia’s hands. We urge the Georgian authorities to withdraw the law, uphold their commitment to the EU path and advance the necessary reforms detailed in the 9 steps,” said Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, in a statement published the day after the approval of the bill.

Borrell added that the “EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice in favour of democracy and of Georgia’s European future. The intimidation, threats and physical assaults on civil society representatives, political leaders and journalists, as well as their families is unacceptable. We call on the Georgian authorities to investigate these documented acts.”

When the EU granted the candidate status to Georgia, it recommended that the country take nine steps toward reform, which include fighting disinformation and foreign information manipulation; improving alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy; addressing the issue of political polarization; ensuring a free, fair, and competitive electoral process; ensuring a systemic approach to de-oligarchization, and undertaking a holistic and effective judicial reform process.

“The EU stands ready to continue supporting Georgians working towards a European future,” Borrell’s statement concluded.

Many in Georgia’s civil society and opposition parties found the statement—which was issued only the day after the approval of the bill—to be weak, said Tinatin Japaridze, a Washington-based risk analyst at the Eurasia Group. “This makes the likelihood of any punitive measures, specifically sanctions from the EU, less likely in the immediate term,” Japaridze said. “I think we are going to watch Brussels try to take its time to figure out exactly how the situation evolves over the next few weeks and months.”

In contrast, the United States was much bolder. James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, warned while visiting Tbilisi on May 14 that Washington could impose financial and travel restrictions unless the bill underwent change, or if security forces continued to forcibly broke up protests as they have in recent weeks.

“If the law goes forward without conforming to EU norms and this kind of rhetoric and aspersions against the U.S. and other partners continue, I think the relationship is at risk,” O’Brien said.

Japaridze said the perception in Washington is that the steady democratic backsliding and Georgian Dream’s recent rhetoric signaling the country’s reorientation away from the West may elicit stronger punitive measures from the United States, rather than the EU, in the near term.

“After the elections, depending on how the elections are held, whether they are free and fair, whether Georgian Dream tries to force its way into getting reelected and into staying in power, or if there is a peaceful regime change, I think the EU is going to make more bolder steps,” Japaridze added.

A top EU official who asked to remain anonymous said the most likely scenario is that in October, if the bill hasn’t been withdrawn, the European Commission will tell the Georgian government that it will not confirm the country’s candidate status, when it issues its yearly report on countries included in the accession process.

Toward the end of May, EU foreign ministers will meet and likely discuss potential reactions the bloc could take to the approval of the bill. “[I] reiterated my full support in continuing to help Georgians to work towards a European future, including by helping to find the best way to address legitimate concerns on all sides,” wrote European Council President Charles Michel on X after speaking to both the Georgian president and prime minister on May 15, the day after the bill was passed.

Several EU officials criticized the bloc for having been too soft so far, wishing it had taken a harsher position before the approval of the law. Now, many doubt that the bill could be withdrawn or be substantially changed in line with other Western countries’ legislation on foreign influence, such as those of the United States and France. They also point at other signs of an illiberal turn by Georgia’s government and its rapprochement with Russia.

For instance, Georgian Dream proposed a bill in March that would broadly curtail LGBTQ rights. It also passed controversial changes to the country’s tax code, which would make it easier to bring offshore assets to Georgia. Critics said the changes risked turning Georgia into a hub for black money while allowing Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder—Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made much of his fortune in Russia—and other oligarchs to evade potential Western sanctions.

Zourabichvili, the Georgian president, vetoed the so-called offshore law at the beginning of May, writing on X that she would “keep vetoing any bill that contradicts Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Georgia’s identity is European, unshakeable despite any attempts to distort it.” Prior to that, parliament also banned—with a bipartisan vote—mandatory gender quotas in politics, which prescribed that at least one out of every four persons on a party list must be a woman. The president vetoed this law too, but parliament overrode her decision on May 15.

“We need more public pressure otherwise the people on the streets in Georgia don’t feel understood. And I would say this a major mistake,” Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, a German European Parliament lawmaker from the Green/European Free Alliance coalition, told Foreign Policy. She said the EU should have threatened to sanction specific individuals in Tbilisi, such as those responsible for the crackdown of protesters and members of the Georgian Dream party—and in particular, Ivanishvili, its chairman.

“The government lied to us last year when they said they wouldn’t have tabled the bill again. The message to them has always been very clear,” the anonymous EU official said. “If we had been as radical as the U.S., what kind of signal would have been for the people of Georgia? That we are turning our back in a situation in which their only hope is the Union.”

Still, the perception by many of the activists who took to the streets to demonstrate over the past weeks, wrapped in European flags, is that the EU should have done more to prevent the democratic backsliding of the country.

“We really appreciated all the support and messages. But in terms of something visible, something you can touch, they have done nothing that can help, which is disappointing,” said Dachi Imedadze, a young campaign strategist for the Shame Movement, at the pro-EU integration civic group’s headquarters in an building in the old part of Tbilisi, equipped with traditional Georgian balconies, anti-tear gas masks, “Russia is an occupier” stickers, and other anti-Russia gear.

The protests, which have been increasing and intensifying in the country’s biggest cities after the passing of the law, are mainly driven by the country’s youth. Unlike older Georgians, some of whom retain a nostalgia for the Soviet Union, younger Georgians have fewer sentimental bonds to Russia and conceive the country’s future only within the EU.

“Georgia will have strong and independent institutions that will contribute to the democratization of the country. In addition, it will have improved social, economic and political programs,” said , a teacher and civil activist from Telavi, a small city in the wine-making region of Kakheti, where a large quantity of Georgian wine is still produced with the ancient method of fermenting and aging it in qvevris, or egg-shaped earthenware vessels.

For others, it’s more a black-or-white decision. “We don’t have the luxury to have an ideological debate here in Georgia. I don’t see Europe as any sort of utopian dream,” said Ana Tavadze, 26, an organizational development officer at the Shame Movement and a member of the pro-LGBT rights Tbilisi Pride group. “For us, the choice is between better or worse.”