Georgia at a Crossroads

Measures

The 2024 parliamentary elections accelerated Georgia’s political realignment and deep­ened its domestic political crisis. All four elected opposition parties protested over the conduct of the election. Three of them requested that their mandates be annulled, with the fourth boycotting parliamentary work. As a result, only GD members are rep­resented in the newly constituted par­liament. In February 2025, three deputies split from the GD parliamentary group. They now operate as the nominal oppo­sition, under the label of the European Socialists party. The lawmakers of yet another party, known as People’s Power, have performed the same nominal move already twice – having first spun off in 2022 as an offshoot of GD.

Mikheil Kavelashvili was sworn in as president in late 2024, succeeding Salome Zourabichvili, whose standing as a coun­ter­weight to GD had grown in recent years. Kavelashvili’s inauguration drew criticism from opposition politicians and major seg­ments of the independent civil society. They deem the new parliament illegitimate – a decisive body in electing the president fol­low­ing a constitutional reform that replaced the direct popular vote with an electoral college. The induction of Kavelashvili, who is notorious for his EU-hostile and anti-liberal posture, appears to reaffirm GD’s foreign policy realignment.

There have been multiple accusations about police officers and unidentified law enforcement agents exercising disproportionate force against demonstrators during the street protests. Hundreds of protesters, including journalists and activists, have been detained. Parliament rapidly passed a succession of laws that hinder legal protest, broadening the scope of punishable offences, increasing fines for protest-related offences, and extending the duration of administrative detention from 5 to 60 days. A decree classifying “highways of state and international importance” as strategic infrastruc­ture further restricts the physical space for legal protest. Critics of the current political leadership view this as an attempt to curb protest and mobilisation.

Recently, the government has stepped up its efforts. For example, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) came into force on 31 May 2025. The new law represents, as GD says, a “direct Georgian translation” of the American FARA. But it is no less contro­versial than its forerunner, the law on “Transparency of Foreign Influence”. The ruling elite has also taken numerous steps to tighten regulation of the media. Inde­pend­ent observers believe that the recent initiatives further shrink the space for in­dependent reporting and civil society activ­ity, an assessment shared by international human rights organisations.

As well as rupturing ties with the EU, domestic political developments in Georgia have seriously strained relations with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). PACE has put off full recog­nition of the Georgian delegation, citing democratic backsliding, human rights vio­lations during the protests, and concerns over the conduct of the parliamentary elec­tion. In response, the Georgian delegation suspended its participation in PACE.

Narratives

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb­ruary 2022, GD has been disseminating the narrative that there exists a “global war party”, seeking to drag Georgia into a war with Russia and demanding that Tbilisi open a “second front”. GD has claimed credit for meeting this pressure with a policy of restraint, and thus for keeping Georgia out of a war with Russia.

The ruling elite has refined its narrative over time. Where it used to refer to a “global war party”, GD now increasingly speaks of a “deep state” – an omnipresent (shadow) state within a state, supposedly exerting global influence. Whichever term is used, it remains unclear which actors GD is specifically alluding to. According to GD, the “deep state” operates everywhere, and is particularly active where GD faces vocal criticism – for example in Strasbourg, after the European Parliament in February 2025 passed a strongly critical resolution denying the legitimacy of the GD government.

The “global war party” and “deep state” are major narratives in the ruling GD’s Euro­scepticism. Although the party had already positioned itself increasingly firmly against a liberal “Europe” and instead espoused a “true” conservative version, its decision to suspend the EU accession process raises more fundamental questions about the coun­try’s foreign policy orientation.

Symbolism

Change is also apparent in the iconography. After Mikheil Saakashvili became president in 2004, Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic orientation had a symbolic underpinning: the ruling elites used the EU flag extensively. It was displayed next to the Georgian flag in key government institutions, including parlia­ment. This did not reflect the real state of Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Al­though the flag also symbolised the Council of Europe, of which Georgia is a member, its use epitomised the political ambition to bring Georgia into the EU, which was shared among the ruling elite (including GD for a long time) and among large segments of society.

The visual decor for Mikheil Kavelashvili’s inauguration emblemises the shift. The stage was filled with Georgian flags, white with five red crosses, with the EU’s blue and yellow nowhere to be seen. The EU flag is still omnipresent in Tbilisi. But now it is more likely to be seen in political graffiti or at protests, rather than in gov­ernment buildings and official ceremonies. This change in political imagery is part of GD’s political communication. It underscores the narrative that Georgia must reassert its national interests, sovereignty, and identity.

The symbolic dimension also figures in GD’s foreign policy, where a realignment is underway. The ruling elite has engaged in performative acts, such as highly publicised trips to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Central Asia, and China. Yet, little is known about the cooperation agreement, worth six billion US dollars, that Prime Minister Kobakhidze brought back from his trip to the UAE in late January 2025. The bilateral relationship with China still appears to fall short of GD’s official asser­tions, despite considerable progress in recent years. Georgia signed a strategic part­nership agreement with China in 2023. Rather than an American consortium, as initially foreseen, a Chinese-Singaporean group will now build the deep-sea port in Anaklia. And economic, cultural, and edu­cational ties are expanding.

Tbilisi is further normalising economic and trade relations with Russia – areas where the EU has fallen short of expectations. This development points to a foreign policy reorientation. For many years, Tbilisi aspired to integrate with Europe – and even­tually to join the EU. Now, new entan­gle­ments in foreign policy are overwriting this long-standing aspiration, rendering Georgia’s future, in the words of Georgian commentators, “Eurasian” or at least “multi-vector”.

What next?

The EU suspended high-level contacts in summer 2024, in response to Georgia’s democratic backsliding. It remains open whether the EU will recognise the GD govern­ment as legitimate. The Weimar Triangle of Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, for example, has avoided doing so in its state­ments. By reducing their contact to a mini­mum, Western partners constrain Georgia’s international leeway and reinforce doubts over the conduct of the election. But this may also risk further eroding the EU’s already diminishing influence.

The Trump administration appears to have at least lifted Washington’s “contact ban”. In spring 2025, the US ambassador in Tbilisi met the GD foreign minister and the minister of economy, who also serves as the first deputy prime minister. The differences between Brussels and Washington have also become more apparent under Trump.

Given this dynamic, the EU’s continued refusal to engage in direct communication and dialogue could push it further to the sidelines and do a disservice to its declared aim of supporting Georgian society’s aspi­ration to forge closer ties with the EU and strengthening democracy in the country. Brussels should therefore consider carefully when, how, and where it might restore direct political and diplomatic channels in order to promote its own interests and back Georgia’s democracy and future in Europe. However, in order to ensure such communi­cation, the EU should adopt a clear posi­tion and demonstrate maximum unity, pre­venting its institutions and member states from being pitted against each other. In any case, restoring communication should in no way herald the comeback of “business as usual”.

The EU’s objectives stem from normative claims and geopolitical interests. Here, Georgia poses a challenge to the EU: How to balance these objectives through foresighted policies that are both consistent and adapt­able?

Georgian civil society organisations view the EU as a partner with a normative orien­tation. They advocate for objectives such as rule of law, minority rights, and media freedom, which are on the EU’s agenda and in its Association Agreement with Georgia. Consequently, they judge the EU according to its normative standards and its handling of current developments in Georgia.

Brussels has begun redirecting financial aid originally earmarked for the government to benefit Georgian civil society orga­nisations instead. Civil society and inde­pend­ent media are under heavy pressure, facing state restrictions on their activities and loss of USAID funding. It therefore makes sense for the EU to step up its finan­cial support for civil society to fill the gap. The assistance should involve minimal bureaucracy and respond to criticisms of past programmes. For example, EU donors should avoid mistakes such as concentrating initiatives in the capital, imposing bureaucratic burdens on grassroots organi­sations and lower-budget projects, or over­looking the urgent needs of local communities. In the interests of promoting civil soci­ety resilience, measures should strength­en independent sustainability rather than fos­tering dependency.

At the same time, GD’s recent legislative initiatives shrink the space for EU engagement. European donors are compelled to con­tinually reassess their room for ma­noeu­vre and consider how to preserve it. To this end, targeted mobility programmes could help civil society actors from Georgia, the EU, and other Eastern Partnership countries to exchange best practices and share lessons learned from operating under similar politi­cal and legal frameworks.

Cooperation can also help prevent aliena­tion between the Georgian society and the EU. Decades of intense exchange have established strong ties and shared values with the Georgian population and civil society. According to the EU Neighbours East Survey from March 2024, 60 per cent of respondents in Georgia have a positive image of the EU, and over 80 per cent say they trust it. A number of Euro­pean countries, including Germany, have reduced their cooperation – in particular with government and state structures – in response to the political developments. The challenge is to steer these steps, for exam­ple in education or development cooperation, so that they inflict minimal harm on Georgian society and its ties with the EU.

The EU should make greater use of stra­tegic foresight. This would enable European leaders to be better prepared for possible future scenarios, to develop specific action plans, and to foster internal consensus for their implementation. Where unanimity among all 27 member states cannot be achieved, a maximally broad coalition should form between willing partners. The bleaker future scenarios could include even tighter restrictions on cooperation with civil soci­ety and independent media or even a ban on opposition parties. GD representatives have repeatedly floated the possibility of such a ban since 2024. This threat has been concretised recently, with GD setting up a parliamentary inquiry to investigate UNM’s actions in government (2004–2012) and sub­sequently in opposition.

Beyond the bilateral

For a long time, Georgia was the closest partner of the EU – and of NATO – in the South Caucasus. The country emblemised a stronghold for Europe’s regional initiatives and was a regional advocate of closer ties with the EU. Political developments within Georgia and between Brussels and Tbilisi not only affect their bilateral relationship, but also have a broader impact on the EU’s role and future engagement in the wider region.

We should also view the Georgian case in light of Europe’s stability and future secu­rity order. History has shown that Russia’s destabilising imperialism is also directed at the South Caucasus. It is in the EU’s interest to curb this destabilising influ­ence, or at least to help countries in the region to reduce their dependency on Rus­sia. Moreover, other actors that do not share the EU’s normative profile are gaining po­liti­cal weight in the neighbourhood. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed transport and transit routes. This in turn has height­ened the EU’s focus on the South Caucasus and Georgia in economic connectivity. Nor­mative issues (such as legal certainty), hete­ro­geneity of players, and regional stability all play a role here as well.

What role can the EU play for Georgia and the region? This will depend not only on the instruments and measures the EU employs in the bilateral relationship, but also significantly on how credibly the EU acts in a rapidly changing global order and how the region perceives its agency. This is especially true in an environment where various actors – often not like-minded with the EU – are trying to expand their foothold, and where Russia is seeking to extend its hegemonic claims to the South Caucasus.

The EU’s attractiveness and credibility could also increase indirectly if it showcases progress on integrating other membership candidates. To this end, Brussels should vigorously press on with their accession pro­cesses. This could strip away the argu­mentative basis for GD’s EU-hostile rhetoric and counter it with a positive narrative. The EU must therefore keep an eye on both the positive and negative repercussions of its policies in different regions.

To position itself as a strong and resolute partner and successfully convey this image in the region, the EU needs to show greater unity, make credible offers, and adopt con­sistent and effective measures. Only then can the EU retain its relevance as an exter­nal actor – both for Georgia and in its own neighbourhood.