#but they aren't your saviours riding in to fix things if they don't hold GD accountable

[notasapleasure]

A tale of two Georgias

Note: I wouldn't normally share subscriber-exclusive content from this news site, but I think Shota Kincha's opinions are too important to hide away in an exclusive email this time. If you're so minded, please consider supporting open journalism in the Caucasus anyway and sending some money OCMedia's way.

Highlighting is my own. Of course I support Georgia joining the EU, but absolutely not under conditions that ignore the recent rolling back of democratic freedoms.

---

By Shota Kincha, for OC Media.

On Wednesday, Georgians celebrated a long-awaited recommendation from the European Commission for their nation’s candidacy for EU membership, leaving the country’s candidacy pending just final approval from the heads of EU member states in mid-December. But the Commission’s assessment of the government’s ‘progress’ seemed to be based on wishful thinking, rather than its actions. 

On denying Georgia the status last year, the European Commission outlined 12 ‘priorities’ Georgia would need to address for the decision to be reconsidered — preconditions that largely reflected the spirit of the April 2021 agreement brokered by European Council President Charles Michel between the government and opposition groups.

When the unforeseen possibility for Georgia to formally apply for membership presented itself in early 2022, Georgia’s leadership had already failed on some of the key components of the previous year’s accord. 

Instead of addressing the ‘perception of politicised justice,’ an apparent euphemism for the imprisonment of opposition leaders, most notably Nika Melia in early 2021, the Georgian court imprisoned another prominent government critic, Nika Gvaramia, only five weeks before the European Commission was due to assess Georgia’s readiness for EU membership candidacy.

Instead of the ambitious judicial reform promised in the 2021 Michel deal and mentioned in the EU’s ‘12 priorities’ last year, the ruling Georgian Dream party has continued to shield corrupt judicial officials with a stranglehold on Georgian courts, resulting in more politicised administrative fines and criminal cases against civil activists, political leaders, media managers, or youth with ‘confused orientation’ who risked their freedom to defend Georgia’s pro-Western choice on the streets.

In the run-up to the European Commission’s latest decision on Georgia, the government and security services run by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s goons artificially created an anti-Western parliamentary group, gifted them private channel PosTV, and made violent extremist pro-Russian Alt Info immune to obstruction or challenge. 

If the last five years under Georgian Dream rule had been a steady decline in democratic freedoms, the government’s actions in the months since it applied to join the European Union — including their recent initiatives to clamp down on Georgia’s civil society and constrain protest — far surpassed any and all negative predictions.

But listening to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, one could have assumed she was discussing an entirely different country. 

Despite Georgia’s government persecuting free media, parroting Russian propaganda against the West, refusing to undertake institutional reforms in a way that included other groups and stakeholders, and satisfying only three of the twelve conditions set last year, the European Commission complimented them with no substantial criticism.

I do not believe the EU should approve Georgian membership candidacy later this year, as the move looks set to validate and entrench the government’s precipitous lurch towards authoritarianism. 

The European Commission’s approach may be based on the belief that denying Georgia candidate status could lead to Georgians becoming disillusioned with the EU and the West. But Georgians have been staunchly pro-Western for decades, perhaps even centuries. 

The real danger to Georgians’ trust in the West comes from the West’s indifference to anti-democratic moves by Georgia’s government, which, if left unchecked, will continue to use state institutions to slowly but steadily shift popular mood and policies towards Russia. 

Even were we to allow that recommending EU candidacy status was a justified decision in Georgia’s best interests, doing so did not obligate the institution’s leaders to legitimise the country’s government in the way they did.

Listening to the widely televised announcement by the European Commission on Wednesday, Georgians could reasonably have concluded that democratic backsliding, state capture by big capital, and a politicised judiciary are consistent with Georgia’s pro-Western aspirations, or that related warnings from local activists and media have been baseless or overblown. 

The announcement could also have created the impression that the ruling party has been delivering on reforms demanded by the EU, a powerful notion less than a year before the country’s next general elections. 

The truth is, however, that in inviting Georgia to join the club while neglecting to call out the government’s shortcomings, the EU is playing a dangerous game, and one it has played before. The EU does not want another Orban, and the South Caucasus definitely does not need another Aliyev.

I may be wrong: perhaps granting Georgia candidate status will still be a wise choice on the EU’s part. But even in its recommendation, the European Commission could have sent a clear message that business as usual would no longer be tolerated. 

What Georgia’s leadership heard instead will become abundantly clear in the coming months.