Gabriel Gavin is a British journalist and writer covering Eurasian politics and foreign affairs for POLITICO Europe. He has covered armed conflicts, political crises and economic upheaval from more than a dozen countries. He is also the author of a forthcoming book, ‘Ashes of our Fathers: Inside the Fall of Nagorno-Karabakh,’ due to be published in January 2025.
In our interview with him, Radio Free Europe/RL’s Georgian Service began by asking how the Georgian government’s calling back the infamous foreign agents’ law will be seen in the West on one hand, and in Moscow on the another.
“I think it’s worth considering that before the foreign agents’ law, Georgian Dream promised just last week to tighten restrictions on LGBTQ+ people. We also saw the government opposing the process of vetting judges. What people in Brussels and Washington are seeing from Georgia, or from the Georgian government, at the moment, is a series of legislative proposals that take the country further away from joining the EU, from being part of a more united Europe. The EU has been very clear in its recommendations, and suggested reforms that it provided to Georgia as part of the membership process: Georgia needs to work on human rights, needs to work on judicial reforms, and particularly needs to work on political polarization. And I think it’s very hard to look at these measures and say they will make the EU think that that job is being taken seriously.
Georgia is getting further away from the EU and not closer through these measures, which I think is a tragedy
Obviously, the US is going to be particularly concerned, as Georgia has become a country that has in the past attracted a huge amount of US funding for NGOs and civil society; it has attracted projects that have made a real difference in the lives of lots of Georgians, and also changed the political discourse in Georgia. And if you have big agencies like USAID potentially being labeled as foreign agents, it becomes a very uncomfortable place to work.
I’ve spoken to many people in Georgia and the civil society sector there, and none of them feel they’re operating on behalf of a foreign power: They say they are Georgian patriots doing what they can for Georgia. I think it would be very difficult to tell them they’re not.
When it comes to Russia, the Kremlin will feel vindicated in a way, seeing that another country is using its model. And they will say: “Well, would you look at that, the West: Not everyone wants to live like you! Georgia, a country that you’ve brought closer, through all the EU and US efforts, even this country is now doing what we started.”
The same goes for the LGBTQ+ bill. It’s not a game-changer for the Kremlin, but it will definitely help Russia. Russia will be looking at whether it is winning or losing the battle for influence over Georgia. And I think it will conclude, with steps like this, that that battle is swinging in its favor.
With the foreign agents’ law being brought back, should Brussels feel that it got duped?
It’s clear that the Georgian Dream aren’t wholeheartedly committed to adopting everything the EU wants them to adopt in a moving-forward accession process. One of the things that would follow on from that is alignment on foreign policy. The EU was very clear when it granted Georgia candidate status, that the status is not membership, and that Georgia had not achieved all of the things that the EU had hoped Georgia would achieve. The EU chose to move forward with the caveat that Georgia still has work to do. That decision was made on the basis of the Georgian people’s continued European dream and not on the Georgian Dream political party’s record in office.
Obviously, Georgian Dream will always take credit for that and say, look, this happened on our watch. But I don’t think Georgians want to end up in a situation like Turkey, where EU talks have been going on for 40 years, and there’s no real pretense that it’s going anywhere. Moldova and Ukraine have already moved forward with accession talks, and Georgia is not even at that point yet. And I think the longer that situation goes on, the more Georgians will start asking: Why? And with these legislation changes, it becomes a much, much longer and rockier path to joining the EU. Georgia is getting further away from the EU and not closer through these measures, which I think is a tragedy.
One thing that will be particularly sensitive for Georgia is Armenia, its neighbor to the south, now having far friendlier, far better and far more productive relations with Brussels than Georgia does. For the last 10-15 years, Georgia was the golden country of the South Caucasus and most likely to be the first member state in the EU, no one else was going to come close and Armenia was effectively a vassal of Russia. But what we’ve seen in the last two years is that Georgia has been left behind.
Perhaps Armenia is doing it because they had to cede Karabakh under the pro-Western Pashinyan. A Georgian gov’t official would tell you, “we didn’t lose any land, there was no war on our watch, unlike the former government’s, unlike Armenia.” What would your counter-argument be?
I completely agree on the first point, that Armenia did this only after losing Karabakh. But why they did it is because they realized that dependence on Russia was a strategic failure; they realized that it didn’t achieve anything positive for them. And now what they’re trying to do is very carefully unpick the threads that bind them to Russia. Armenia has been part of the Russian Empire, was in the Soviet empire, for more than a century, 150 years. And I think that’s a very difficult process to undertake.
What we’ve seen in the last two years is that Georgia has been left behind in the region
Paradoxically, quite a few analysts, including in Brussels, have praised Georgian Dream, because Georgia shares a border with Russia, Russia’s never going to go away, there’s always going to be an element of managing the Russians in Georgia’s politics, of course. But I think this is now a question of outcomes.
What the Georgian government says it wants to do is get membership of the European Union. And I think the steps it’s taking are setting it back on that path, not forward. So if Georgian Dream has come to the conclusion that joining the EU would be a provocation for Russia, and they’re too afraid of doing that, or if they think it would be negative for the Georgian economy due to its trade with Russia, they should come out and say: “Look, we don’t think this is the right thing to do anymore,” rather than saying, “Yes, we love the EU, we’re going into the EU,” and at the same time doing everything possible to slow down that journey. I think Georgians deserve honestly about this.
Many think Ivanishvili’s return means that he will lend his stature to this legislation, so fewer people will protest it, reluctant to take to the streets and openly oppose Bidzina, “the savior of the country.”
I think if you ask 100 Georgians what Ivanishvili’s plans are, you will get 100 different answers from them. His return to frontline politics is probably part of a far larger process than just one bill. And it may well be designed in a way that makes relations with the EU paradoxically easier rather than harder. Because one of the things that Brussels has always been pushing for is de-oligarchization. And there was really only one person that could apply to in Georgia, everybody was pretty clear that it’s Ivanishvili. But now that he’s a politician again, he can say, “well, I might be very wealthy, but I am still a politician, I’m not pulling the strings behind the scenes, which was the common perception. I’m actually actively involved in politics.”
We at Politico faced a lot of criticism in the past when we described Bidzina as being central to Georgian politics. And pro-government media would always be very critical and say: “No, he’s an innocent businessman, who’s just literally concerned about the state of the country, uses his money to support other politicians. That’s it. He’s not involved in politics.” And now that he’s actually put his head above the parapet, that becomes impossible to say.
Now we can look at what Bidzina is doing internationally. We can look at what those around him are doing, and we can judge him on his record. It’s far better to know who’s really in charge.
Interview by Vazha Tavberidze
Read the Georgian version of this interview here.
