Demonstration against the “foreign influence” bill in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 3, 2024. ZURAB TSERTSVADZE / AP
Europeans still find it hard to believe: Just four months after granting Georgia official candidate status for membership of the European Union (EU), they are watching in amazement as the controversial bill on “foreign influence” returns to parliament in this former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus.
Modeled on a 2012 Russian law aimed at silencing civil society and independent media, the text is deemed incompatible with democratic and European values. Expected by June, its final adoption would jeopardize rapprochement with the EU, something enshrined in the Georgian Constitution and aspired to by 80% of the population.
In Tbilisi, thousands of people have gone to the streets every day for the past three weeks, demanding the bill’s withdrawal against a backdrop of increasing repression. But unlike in March 2023, when the bill was first tabled in the Georgian parliament before being dropped under pressure, the government seems deaf to protests and international condemnation.
In Brussels, the situation is of the utmost concern. Following repression in the streets of the Georgian capital, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement on May 1 condemning “violence in the streets of Tbilisi” and expressing her “concern” about the Foreign Influence Act. This is an unusual intervention. “It’s not every day that the president speaks out. That just goes to show how worried the Commission is,” said a source close to the EU executive.
The EU-27 are all the more alarmed given that Georgia’s strongman, billionaire oligarch and ruling party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, gave a resolutely anti-Western speech in true Kremlin style on Monday, April 29. In his vehement, conspiratorial diatribe, he equated Westerners, the political opposition and Georgian civil society with enemies, accusing them of fomenting a revolution to overthrow the government and destabilize the country.
This private man, who obtained French nationality in 2010 and was awarded the Légion d’Honneur by France in 2021, also announced the repression of all government opponents after the parliamentary elections, scheduled for October. He concluded with assurances that, against all evidence, “in 2030, Georgia will join the EU.”
Credibility test for the EU-27
In addition to EU institutions, the member states are also extremely concerned. On X, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said that he was “heartbroken to hear Ivanishvili’s vision for Georgia’s future (…) We are now shocked to see Georgians being dragged towards unfreedom by those who are most scared of freedom themselves.”
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