Putin's takeover of Georgia risks tragic EU defeat

The appointment of Estonian former prime minister Kaja Kallas as the EU's new high representative for foreign affairs and security policy (HRVP) is undoubtedly a rock-solid demonstration that countering Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a top priority for the EU.

In Georgia, another key Eastern Partnership country that was the first victim of Russian aggression in 2008, Kallas will have to deal with surging Russian influence and the transformation of Georgia into a Russian vassal against the will of its people. 

A Russian political victory in Georgia, which now seems closer than most people thought possible, would be a major blow to EU interests and a tragedy for the Georgian people, who have repeatedly and resolutely expressed their pro-European aspirations.

The new HRVP will have to focus personally not only on how to prevent this disaster, but also on restoring strong political control over the European External Action Service (EEAS) bureaucracy, which has often acted as a key enabler of Russian influence in Georgia.  

The stakes could not be higher: while Georgia's transformation into a Russian satellite would be a disaster in itself, failure to help the Georgian people reverse this slide into oblivion will also render futile EU efforts to engage Western-leaning Armenia.

There is no doubt that the “foreign influence” law recently adopted by the ruling Georgian Dream party in Georgia, a copy-paste of draconian Russian legislation that president Vladimir Putin's regime has used to dismantle civil society in Russia, is a victory for the Kremlin.

Russia's leaders, including Putin himself, have vocally supported the law and Georgian Dream in the face of Western criticism.

However, the institution that Kallas will be commanding, the EEAS, despite Georgian Dream crossing one red line after another, pushed for business as usual with Georgian Dream's puppet master, oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, and his cronies for as long as possible, thus enabling Georgia’s democratic backsliding and drift towards Russia. 

No one in Western capitals, and especially in Brussels, is under the illusion that unless significant costs are imposed on Ivanishvili and his crew, much worse is in store not only for Georgia but also for EU interests.

Virtually all Georgian civil society organisations that have refused to register with the Kremlin-style registry face imminent closure.

In his 29 April anti-Western manifesto, Ivanishvili himself announced a large-scale crackdown that is sure to include mass prosecutions, arrests, and possibly violence.

Georgian election-monitoring organisations would almost certainly be dismantled, making international monitoring of the upcoming October elections of limited relevance, while the election itself will be under threat.

Georgia's Belarusisation, with its eventual transformation into a Kremlin vassal, will go one step further.

Indeed, Ivanishvili's regime has been using tactics from the Kremlin playbook for some time, including the use of groups of thugs (mainly wrestlers), often mixed in with the police, to attack and severely beat dissenters, including near their homes and in front of their children.

How could this disaster have happened?

Wasn't Georgia supposed to be at the forefront of the Eastern Partnership?

Many of us have been warning for years about Georgia's drift into the Kremlin's orbit, closely linked to democratic backsliding.

But such concerns have often been downplayed by bureaucrats at various levels: The 2013 report by the EU's special adviser on constitutional and legal reform, Thomas Hammarberg, neglected and even denied the development of selective justice under the Georgian Dream government, and was extremely damaging at a time when more could have been done.

Too many have looked the other way, while eager to declare “success” for their own work.

In a 2016 meeting with a visiting group of MEPs, the then European Union ambassador to Georgia, Janos Herman, downplayed their concerns about Ivanishvili's pro-Russian leanings, defended his record and intentions, and asked them not to call Ivanishvili an oligarch.

Instead, he said, they should call him an “enlightened patriotic tycoon”.

He also defended a controversial law that Georgian Dream had used to hijack Georgia's then-independent and highly respected Constitutional Court.

Sadly, this is one, but certainly not the only, example of how ignorance has enabled Georgia's gradual slide into disaster.

Our goal now, and that of the Georgian people, must be to prevent this and to avoid the final catastrophe of Georgia's imminent and full slide into Russia's orbit.

We are confident that Kallas also wants to stop this, but for that to happen, the legitimate leverage of the West, and the EU in particular, must be used immediately, and strong political scrutiny at the highest level must return to the Georgian file in Brussels.

Failure to impose costs on those who have spearheaded the drive to bring Georgia into the Kremlin's clutches is not pragmatism but impunity, which encourages further abuse.

While the US has imposed travel restrictions on these individuals and their family members, the EU not following suit is a green light for the hotheads in Georgian Dream.

It is true that Hungary will try to block similar sanctions, but as the Russian sanctions ordeal showed, the EU can avoid being held hostage by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, while the Commission has quite a few executive tools at its disposal.

The stakes are simply too high, and as numerous previous cases have shown, doing nothing is a terrible policy.

The Georgian people have shown their determination, their non-violent discipline, their commitment to European ideals and their resistance to the tyrannical influence of the Kremlin.

Now is the time for European action to respond, to stand up for democracy and the rule of law, and to allow Georgia to remain a candidate for membership in the European Union.

This oped has been published in partnership with Voxeurop