EU foreign ministers will discuss the situation in Georgia when they assemble in Brussels on May 27. Brussels is still hoping that the country's controversial "foreign agent" law, which is expected to be finally passed this week, will be withdrawn or sufficiently watered down. The bill has been heavily criticized by Western countries and rights groups for creating a framework to clamp down on civil society and free media.
Until the law is adopted, the EU is unlikely to do anything. But what then are the bloc's options? The European Commission will be tasked with drawing up a paper, and there are roughly four major things that could be done: cut EU money to the country, sanction high-ranking Georgian politicians, stall the country's EU accession process, and suspend visa liberalization.
The perhaps most obvious option, and one that the U.S. Congress is currently considering, is to slap asset freezes and visa bans on leading Georgian politicians. The potential wrench in the works here is that you need unanimity among EU member states, something that will be hard to achieve.
Cutting funds from the EU budget is something the European Commission can do without a green light from member states, but there is an obstacle here as well. Georgia gets some 85 million euros ($92 million) a year in grants, some of which goes directly to the state and some to organizations within the country. A lot of that money supports the country's civil society sector -- something Brussels wants to protect now more than ever.
Deep Background: What about Georgia's EU accession process? When the Georgian Parliament voted in favor of the controversial legislation for the third time on May 14, the EU issued a statement noting that "the adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia's progress on the EU path."
At the moment, Georgia has official candidate status, and the next step is to open accession talks. In many ways, though, the point is moot as no enlargement decisions are expected anytime soon. The European Commission's big report on the issue is due in October, and then, based on that, EU member states will decide in December.
One slight complication is that most likely at the end of June, the EU will aim to formally start accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine, as well as advancing the EU integration processes of Serbia and Montenegro. There is already a lot of tricky political choreography in trying to please various camps of EU member states that are advocating for the EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe. Very few EU officials I have spoken to want to complicate matters further by adding Georgia to the mix.
Some members of the European Parliament have called for Georgia's candidate status to be reversed, but that is something that has never happened in EU history. And to do that, you would need to secure the ever-illusive unanimity.
The most likely scenario is maintaining the status quo: Georgia would remain a candidate to join the EU but without accession talks starting anytime soon. The question for policymakers is whether the Georgian government would even see this as a setback. Negotiations take years even with the best candidates, and the ruling Georgian Dream party can always point to the fact that it was actually them that delivered Georgia's candidate status in 2023.
Drilling Down:
By RFE/RL
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