EU suspends Georgia’s joining process

Leaders of EU member states have agreed to suspend Georgia’s accession to the EU due to its Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, which resembles the Russian foreign agent law in many ways, according to SOVA, citing EU Ambassador to Georgia Pavel Gerchinsky.

As the ambassador reported, presidents and prime ministers of EU member states met in Brussels on June 27 to discuss several important matters related to the future agenda, future EU leaders and support for Ukraine.

«Unfortunately, and I am sorry about that, they have also agreed to stop the process of Georgia’s accession to the European Union. The European Council’s message about that was crystal clear. Read it carefully. EU leaders have no idea what the intentions of the current government of Georgia are, but it is obvious that the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence is a step back.

Furthermore, anti-Western, anti-European rhetoric is inconsistent with the declared intention of joining the EU. Unfortunately, as of today, Georgia’s accession to the EU is suspended. This is a shame,» said Gerchinsky at a two-day conference called «EU Enlargement — A Geopolitical Necessity and the Next Steps for the EU Candidate States.»

In addition, the EU has frozen €30 million that was supposed to be sent to the Georgian Defense Ministry.

In April 2024, thousands of Georgians took to the streets to oppose a draft law on transparency of foreign influence. At the time, people argued that the document was a copy of a similar law in Russia and might prevent the country from joining the EU.

Despite the protests, the Georgian parliament adopted the law on May 14. On May 18, President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili dubbed the law «Russian» and vetoed it as unconstitutional, though the parliament overrode the veto on May 28 with a majority of votes. On June 3, Speaker of the Parliament Shalva Papuashvili announced the law had been signed.

In response to these events, the U.S. has imposed sanctions against dozens of Georgian citizens, including members of parliament, for undermining democracy and cracking down on peaceful protesters who opposed the Georgian version of the foreign agent law.

The new law obliges nongovernmental organizations and media that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents under threat of a fine. Georgia applied for EU membership on March 3, 2022. In December 2023, the European Council granted Georgia candidate status for joining the EU.