Georgia hedges its bets on the EU — and Russia

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. 

TBILISI — Even by the disorderly standards of Georgian politics, last week’s Independence Day celebration in Tbilisi’s Liberty Square was strikingly odd, with the country’s feuding president and prime minister delivering dueling speeches to the crowd.

President Salome Zourabichvili — who stood as an independent candidate in 2018, winning with the support of the ruling Georgian Dream Party — renewed her criticism of the government for what she dubbed its “anti-Western policy,” and focused sharply on the recent restoration of direct flights with Russia, describing them as “incomprehensible and insulting.”

For his part, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili insisted that Georgia’s “progress on the path to European integration is particularly impressive,” reassuring the packed square that he’s sparing no effort to persuade the European Union that Georgia deserves to be granted candidate status. “In today’s most difficult geopolitical situation, we, the government of Georgia and the Georgian people, expect Europe to make the only correct and fair decision,” he said.

However, his apparent enthusiasm for the EU would have had more force if the government buildings overlooking the square had been flying EU flags as they usually do. But for the first time in years, this Independence Day, the Cabinet decided to decorate the city with only Georgian flags. And according to both opposition lawmakers and pro-EU activists, this absence is further evidence of a tilt toward Russia — one conveyed mostly in winks and nudges.

That was certainly the view of a few hundred pro-EU activists too, as they waved EU flags and chanted “Georgia, Europe,” while blocked from nearing the Liberty Square celebrations by a police line. “They’re just troublemakers,” the head of the Georgian National Police told me dismissively after escaping a mob of TV reporters who’d beelined for him when scuffles broke out.

Today, Georgia seems hopelessly polarized over everything — its day-to-day politics, values and what the government is or isn’t doing. And according to government critics, the country risks standing alone in the neighborhood, as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — all members of Moscow’s Collective Security Treaty Organization — are decidedly cooling on Moscow, while Georgia appears to be getting friendlier.

The “current authorities want rapprochement with Russia,” said opposition lawmaker Giorgi Vashadze. But they’re doing it surreptitiously because “the population is against this and is committed to the Euro-Atlantic course,” he added.

And by current authorities, he means not just Garibashvili but, more importantly, Bidzina Ivanishvili — the billionaire businessman who amassed his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and briefly served as Georgia’s prime minister a decade ago. The secretive and reclusive Ivanishvili founded Georgian Dream and is widely seen as the real power in the land.

“He is the government,” said Ghia Nodia, a university professor, former education minister and chair of the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development. “So when it comes to the direction of the government, it’s single-handedly defined by one man, and he’s very secretive. So, what is his calculation now? Nobody exactly knows. Of course, his critics say he’s just controlled by Moscow, which I think is an exaggeration. I think he may be scared of Moscow for whatever reason,” Nodia added.

Last week, government critics — including President Zourabichvili — reacted furiously when Ekaterina Vinokurova, daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, was allowed to attend a wedding in Georgia despite being on the EU’s sanctions list. Meanwhile, other critics highlight Georgia’s decision to not join in Western economic sanctions against Russia, its second-largest trade partner. Since the invasion of Ukraine, trade between the two countries has soared by over 20 percent — 40-kilometer border lines of freight trucks waiting to enter Russia are a testimony to booming commerce.

But government supporters say Georgian Dream has little alternative but to tread carefully with Russia. Only 15 years ago, the country fought its own brief war with its vast neighbor over the status of two Moscow-backed breakaway regions — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — and it took Russia just five days to grab around 20 percent of the country. It can’t afford another run-in with Moscow.

Nikoloz Samkharadze, chair of the Georgian parliament’s foreign relations committee and a Georgian Dream lawmaker, believes opposition politicians are offering a false story. “Their only narrative is that Georgian Dream is a pro-Russian party, and they have been spouting it for years. I suppose when you start saying just one thing, you have to continue no matter whether it’s right or not,” he said.

“We have not taken any steps to signal any tilt toward Russia. And if you look at our policy, it has always been consistent. We clearly say that there will be no normalization of relations with the Russian Federation until our territories are de-occupied and until Russia recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia,” he noted.

He also added that the government has always made it clear to Moscow it mustn’t interfere with the country’s “Euro-Atlantic choice; that’s a red line for us.” And that “since the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the government hasn’t been doing anything that it wasn’t doing before the war.”

But that may just be part of the problem. As a country aspiring for EU candidacy maybe more is needed.

In Georgia’s defense, its government has condemned Russia’s invasion and expressed full solidarity with Ukraine and, aside from offering political support, it’s sent humanitarian aid and is currently sheltering around 25,000 Ukrainian war refugees. Georgia was also one of the 38 countries that applied to the International Criminal Court to investigate Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, resulting in the issuing of an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin.

And joining the sanctions would be deeply damaging for the country’s economy. “We would destroy Georgia’s economy, we would damage the interests of our country and we would damage the interests of our people if we impose some kind of economic sanctions on Russia,” Garibashvili noted at an economic forum in Qatar last week. And he added that while the trade is crucial for his country, cutting it would have little impact on Russia.

Still, there remains the unshakeable impression that there’s some hedging going on — and Garibashvili’s only adding to it. On Tuesday, he echoed Moscow’s narrative, blaming the war in Ukraine on NATO enlargement and Ukraine’s determination to become a member. “Therefore, we see the consequence,” he said at a security conference in Bratislava.

Nodia suspects Ivanishvili doesn’t want to “burn bridges” with either the West or Russia. Ultimately, the outcome of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine will determine the final direction of travel, he predicts.

“That will be very important. Ivanishvili is an opportunist. I don’t believe he has a political vision. He’s a very bizarre guy. He wants to keep power basically — which is not unusual for a politician — but he also sort of knows that this is a small, vulnerable country. So, he distinctively respects power. And I think he has come to the conclusion that the West is sort of weak and Putin is assertive. Russia is on the march, and the West is not resisting it effectively,” he said.

But David Darchiashvili, a political scientist at Ilia State University in Tbilisi and a former lawmaker, thinks rapprochement with Russia was always part of Ivanishvili’s preferred plan. “He and his clannish supporters have always had this mindset from the very beginning when they came into power,” he said.

The reforms they would have to advance for EU membership “would complicate their lives, and that’s why they are not keen, really, to see much progress on the candidacy status — despite what they say,” he maintained.