On the eve of a crucial election in Georgia, scheduled for 26 October, the government’s relations with the European Union are worsening. In December 2023, Brussels granted Georgia the EU candidate status that successive governments have long sought. For the EU, the decision affirmed its support for Georgia’s integration with the West as Russia continues its full-scale war in Ukraine. Just six months later, however, the governing Georgian Dream party introduced legislation that echoes Russian measures used to suppress civil society and stifle dissent. The EU has declared this law, now in force, to be incompatible with Georgia’s accession to the bloc, meaning that the process has ground to a halt. The bloc has also suspended some of the aid it sends Tbilisi and is mulling other measures to signal its frustration. But while Georgian Dream says the country still seeks EU membership, it has not backed down from enforcing the new law. Indeed, it has passed another measure that severely limits the rights of LGBTQI+ residents. It further promises that, if it wins a strong mandate on 26 October, it will outlaw several opposition parties. Such action would further strain ties with the EU, which could in turn affect the bloc’s efforts to foster peace between Tbilisi and two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. More immediately, Georgia’s turbulent politics mean that a contested election could spell unrest.
To preserve its peacemaking role and encourage peaceful elections, while supporting democratic institutions in Georgia, the EU and its member states should:
- Consider offering the EU’s services as a mediator, as it has done in the past, if the October elections are contested or otherwise cause political turmoil. Holding back on the announcement of new punitive measures linked to Georgia’s democratic backsliding until after the elections take place may help allow for such a mediating role.
- After the vote, craft responses to democratic backsliding that focus narrowly on those most responsible – for example restricting any limits on travel to officials rather than curbing visa-free travel for all Georgians. Such an approach can help preserve Georgian support for EU accession and thus the EU’s peacebuilding efforts, monitoring role and continued engagement. The bloc should also redouble efforts to counter disinformation surrounding its policies and to promote independent media.
- Regardless of who wins the elections, seek to continue and even intensify EU monitoring and mediation with regard to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. EU activities have calmed tensions, helped ordinary people remain in their homes along the lines of separation and lowered mistrust between Tbilisi and de facto leaders in each region.
Strained Ties on the Eve of an Election
As it tries to support both democratic institutions and peacebuilding efforts in Georgia, the European Union finds itself in difficult political terrain. Since the bloc granted candidate status to Georgia in December 2023, already strained relations between Tbilisi and Brussels have only worsened. The populist Georgian Dream party, which has been Georgia’s ruling party since 2012, says it is committed to EU accession, but its actions have undermined progress in that direction.
The party, founded by Bidzina Ivanishvili, an oligarch who made his fortune in Russia, has tapped into a longstanding Georgian view that the country can integrate into Europe without adopting certain laws and policies that reflect the bloc’s progressive values. Georgians see EU membership as a route to improved living standards, better governance, fewer restrictions on travel abroad and access to development support funding. The goal of membership has been enshrined in the constitution since 2018. But when it comes to LGBTQI+ freedoms, gender equality and minority rights, some segments of the public are more suspicious of the implications for what they see as Georgia’s national character. Georgian Dream has played on these doubts, for instance describing the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies, which featured drag queens, as representing a “pseudo-liberal ideology”. Georgian Dream also points to existing EU members such as Hungary, which has restricted media freedoms and judicial independence, to insist that Georgia should be able to integrate on its own terms – including by rejecting demands for greater electoral and judicial transparency and pursuing legislation that constrains the rights of its citizens and residents. The party has worked to persuade Georgians that the EU, because it is inflexible on these points, is to blame for any rupture in relations.
Meanwhile, Georgian Dream touts its success in reviving Tbilisi’s trade ties with Moscow, which were savaged by the war the countries fought in 2008, when clashes between Georgia and the Russian-backed breakaways (which had been de facto independent since fighting in the early 1990s, shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved) were used as a pretext for Russian invasion. After the war, Russian forces withdrew, but Moscow recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (as it had not previously) and has kept forces stationed in both. Even as it continues to assert Tbilisi’s claim to the breakaways, Ivanishvili’s party trumpets the economic gains revived commerce with Russia has brought the country. Georgia’s border with Russia (it has none with EU members) facilitates the forging of economic links, and many Georgians work in Russia and send remittances home. Over the last twelve years of Georgian Dream-led normalisation, Russian business interests in Georgia have also grown, one reason that despite widespread support among Georgians for Ukraine, Tbilisi did not join the sanctions regime on Moscow in 2022.
While Brussels has been frustrated that Georgian Dream claims to seek EU membership at the same time as the party backtracks on promised reforms, EU officials understand why Georgia has been careful about managing its relationship with its far bigger and more powerful neighbour. Moreover, keeping Georgia on the path to integration took on new significance for Brussels after Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. As the 2008 war showed, Georgia, unlike Ukraine, does not have the capacity to put up a sustained fight against the Russian armed forces. Against this backdrop, the December 2023 offer of candidacy for EU membership was meant, at least in part, to nudge Georgia toward fuller political, economic and security integration with the West. But the EU’s accession criteria meant that this process would first require a greater alignment on matters of civil and political rights.
If EU officials hoped candidacy would bring Georgian Dream closer to its values, the party’s “foreign agents” law dashed those expectations. This law, introduced on 3 June and enacted on 1 August, requires non-governmental organisations – including media outlets and civil society groups – to file reports if they receive more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad, as many do, mainly from Western sources. The law places the reporting organisations on a register of those “carrying out the interests of a foreign power”. In May, anger about the law brought tens of thousands of people into the streets in Tbilisi’s biggest-ever protests, which spanned months. Violent crackdowns on protesters further damaged Georgian Dream’s image abroad. Several opposition parties boycotted parliament to register discontent with the law. In June, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said: “This law and all the negative developments around it are pushing Georgia away from the European Union”.
Georgian Dream pressed on, however. On 2 October, President Salome Zourabichvili refused to sign the party’s “family values and protection of minors” bill. But she also did not veto it, instead returning it to parliament, where the speaker, a Georgian Dream member, signed it into law the next day. This law bars what Georgian Dream describes as the promotion of non-heterosexual relationships, adoption by same-sex couples and gender reassignment. Like the foreign agents law, it runs counter to core EU values, in particular the bloc’s commitment to fundamental rights, equality and non-discrimination.
The EU faces the conundrum of crafting a response to Georgia’s democratic backsliding that both imposes consequences and encourages the country’s return to the path of integration. It is set to publish its view of the setback’s extent when it issues its next progress report on EU candidate countries, due in October. Already, Brussels has put Georgia’s EU accession talks on ice, saying it had no choice. But its announcement on 9 July that it would suspend €30 million in 2024 European Peace Facility aid to the Georgian military, with money pledged earlier still to be disbursed, has engendered fierce debate. On one hand, European states want to keep bolstering the defences of a country bordering Russia, which has already fought a war with it. On the other hand, if Georgian Dream is indeed moving closer to Moscow, the aid may be wasted at best.
There have been other measures, too. The EU has stopped high-level bilateral visits and is considering freezing more financial assistance to the government while stepping up support for civil society and independent media. EU officials are considering reimposing visa requirements for Georgian officials travelling on diplomatic passports and scrapping visa-free travel for ordinary citizens, should the new Georgian government continue to drift from democracy. On 9 October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a series of tougher measures including freezing EU aid to the Georgian government, imposing sanctions on Ivanishvili and conducting a thorough review of visa liberalisation criteria. While the resolution is non-binding and unlikely to have immediate consequences, it sparked a furious response from Georgian Dream leaders.
Yet the EU’s actions to date are milder than those taken by the United States, which over the course of 2024 has slapped visa bans on dozens of ruling-party and government officials and their families. Washington also shelved plans for joint defence exercises held annually since 2016 and paused nearly $100 million in direct assistance to the Georgian government, while pledging to continue programs that aim to strengthen democracy, rule of law, independent media and economic development.
The EU’s Critical Diplomatic and Monitoring Role
The strained relations threaten the EU’s continued role in mediating, monitoring and maintaining calm in the standoffs between Tbilisi and its breakaway regions. The office of the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus co-leads the Geneva International Discussions, where Russia, Georgia and the two regions continue to engage even as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has shut down other negotiations involving Western states and Moscow. The EU keeps some 250 monitors along the Georgian-controlled side of the lines of separation between Georgia and the breakaways. The mission has provided enough of a sense of security since the 2008 war to help dissuade locals from abandoning their homes and farms. Monitors facilitate contacts between the sides, including Russia. Such contacts made it possible to reopen several crossing points from South Ossetia to the rest of Georgia in 2023, allowing hundreds of people from the conflict zone to visit relatives, receive medical care or trade goods. The mission’s 24-hour hotline, which connects security officials on either side, is often used several times a day to ensure that minor incidents do not escalate.
For the first time since the EU mission was deployed sixteen years ago, Crisis Group is hearing concerns about its future, though the bloc will likely extend its mandate for two years at its present strength before it expires at year’s end. An EU official told Crisis Group that if Georgian Dream wins the elections, certain member states might argue for cutting its budget. Although they are unlikely to succeed, at least at first, it is possible that the elections and their aftermath could jolt the status quo, prompting more EU member states to act to constrain the mission’s monitoring and diplomacy role. Russia is also keen to see the EU pushed out of the region, and if Georgian Dream is re-elected and looking to improve ties with the Kremlin, it might oblige by finding ways to curtail the monitors’ role.
Georgian politics could also worsen Tbilisi’s always challenging relations with the breakaway regions. Ahead of the elections, Georgian Dream is touting the prospect that it might reach a deal with Moscow to restore Georgian sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Such an agreement seems improbable, as Moscow seems happy with the status quo, which offers it leverage over Tbilisi, and the breakaways are uninterested, to say the least. The Kremlin has also made clear that its official recognition of the regions’ independence in 2008 is ironclad.
But while de facto authorities in the two regions have not had the best relations with Georgian Dream, they seem to prefer it to any possible alternative, with some representatives saying they fear the resurgence of conflict under a new administration, especially because the strongest opposition party, the United National Movement, was in power when the 2008 war took place. Ivanishvili was arguably courting the breakaways with his September comments about past Georgian governments’ responsibility for the 2008 war and promises to apologise for the resulting rift with South Ossetia. While South Ossetia’s de facto leadership dismissed the comments as electioneering, Abkhazia’s de facto foreign ministry issued a statement expressing hope that Ivanishvili would prove “sincere in his intentions” and that legally binding commitments to refrain from the use of force between Georgia and the breakaways would follow. Should Georgian Dream lose control of the government in the coming polls, Moscow might also put pressure on the de facto leaders to make life difficult for a new government in Tbilisi, although its capacity to exert direct pressure is reduced by the demands of its continuing war in Ukraine.
Calibrating EU Policy to Georgia’s Realities
At the time of writing, Georgian Dream leads in public opinion polling, ahead of any other possible coalition, although if the opposition parties were to fully unite, together they would have a larger share of the prospective vote. Thus, while opposition leaders hope the public’s overwhelming support for EU membership (79 per cent, according to a 2023 poll) will lead Georgians to oust the current government, the EU should prepare for a range of possible outcomes, including contested results. In each of these scenarios, there are steps it can and should take to optimise the stabilising role it can play in the broader context of its democracy and human rights agenda.
First, if there is no clear winner or the results are disputed, the EU could consider offering its services as a mediator. It did so after the last Georgian election in 2020, persuading opposition politicians to drop a vow to boycott parliament. Mediation could be trickier this time around if Georgian Dream deems the EU to be biased against it, which it could well do. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has repeatedly and fallaciously claimed that the U.S. and the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights plan to interfere in the elections to prevent Georgian Dream’s victory. While neither the U.S. nor the OSCE is the EU, Brussels is seen through a similar lens and could be tarred with the same brush. Now, Georgian Dream has termed the EU ambassador’s criticism of its election banners, which depict images of devastation in Ukraine, ostensibly in an effort to frighten Georgians that a similar fate awaits them under a new government, as interference. Nonetheless, the EU’s 2020 success as a broker and its role with the breakaways could help convince all sides to trust it. In any case, with the elections imminent, the EU should delay deliberation over any new policies in response to the last months’ developments until after the votes are counted, to avoid accusations of meddling.
Secondly, if Georgia’s opposition wins, the EU’s history as a liaison with wary breakaway leaders may help mitigate their fears of renewed conflict. Should a new government reverse Georgian Dream policies such as the “foreign agents” legislation and move forward on EU integration requirements, Brussels would be able to quickly rescind punitive measures and move forward with accession negotiations – building political capital with both elites and the Georgian public, which should help put its peace-making efforts on a more solid footing.
Thirdly, if Georgian Dream wins outright, and the relationship with the EU seems likely to get even worse, the bloc should nevertheless try to manage the new strains in a way that minimises negative public reactions and maintains its peacemaking role vis-à-vis the breakaways. For example, despite Georgian Dream’s continued backsliding, Brussels should wait to see what post-election actions the party takes before announcing new punitive measures, to undercut any suspicion that it is punishing Georgian Dream for winning the vote. Indeed, it can offer to turn the page by very clearly communicating that if Tbilisi reverses the new foreign agents and anti-LGBTQI+ legislation, Georgia’s accession process can resume, with the existing punitive measures lifted. It is crucial that the EU centre conditionality and accession in its narrative, in order to assure Georgians that EU measures do not reflect animus toward Georgian Dream or its supporters, but rather are a direct consequence of non-compliance with EU rules and obligations. In the same vein, should the EU take further punitive measures, it should do so in a targeted way – focusing on officials most responsible for the policies it finds objectionable – and avoiding measures that hurt ordinary citizens and risk undermining support for the EU among Georgians.
In any scenario where the “foreign agents” law remains on the books, the EU should strengthen support for the civil society groups and independent media outlets targeted by it. It should consider additional financial support for organisations that might find themselves in court fighting fines or injunctions to register as foreign agents. The EU can also assist civil society members who may need to seek refuge in Europe.
Finally, whatever the elections bring, the EU must not lose sight of its long-term goal of promoting stability and a peaceful settlement of the country’s territorial disputes as it supports the strengthening of democratic institutions. It should resist moves to shrink or shorten the EU Monitoring Mission’s mandate and, to lessen the chances that it may be booted out, make clear to Georgia that the mission is distinct from any wrangles over the country’s EU accession path. By showing it is fully committed to maintaining and even redoubling its monitoring and diplomatic efforts, regardless of future relations with Tbilisi over other matters, it can maintain its reputation as a trusted mediator in the South Caucasus.