A changed relationship

After years of mutual courting and ad hoc cooperation, and positive future Euro-Atlantic prospects, Georgia formally applied for EU membership following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In April 2024, the ruling Georgian Dream introduced a Draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence requiring nongovernmental organisations and print, online and broadcast media that receive more than 20% of their annual revenue from 'a foreign power' to register with the Ministry of Justice as 'organisations serving the interests of a foreign power'. The law drew widespread condemnation from the West.

After the parliamentary elections results in October 2024 – supervised by OSCE but disputed by the opposition and the Georgian president – the EU passed a non-binding resolution calling for the elections to be re-run. It has suspended the Tbilisi government’s EU membership process until 2028.

The EU demanded a re-run of the October 2024 elections, and has suspended the Georgian government’s EU accession process

In January 2025, protests by the opposition continue. The outgoing US administration has imposed sanctions and halted the Strategic Partnership.

This drastically altered relationship between the West and Georgia will likely have significant consequences.

Geopolitical dilemmas

A reduced Western commitment increases Russo-Chinese influence. The US decision to suspend cooperation with Georgia amounts to disengagement.

This shortsighted approach risks alienating the country. Russia occupies 20% of Georgia, which has opted to remain neutral over the Russia-Ukraine war. Delaying EU-NATO membership indefinitely, and refusing to strengthen Georgian security, favours Russia and business with China.

Mindful of Georgia’s desire to gravitate to the West, the allies should not, following the recent elections, get involved in Georgia’s internal politics, which would require continuous, multi-level engagement. 

Missing the point

The US and its allies could agree to the recently passed transparency law, which prescribes that all funding of NGOs should be transparent. Russia casts the West as the villain, but the allies must rise above such factionalism. An ethnocentric approach fails to consider Russia's century-long influence. 

Halting cooperation amid the stalled EU-NATO integration process opens another door for Beijing and Moscow. Both can present cooperation as more attainable than alignment with the self-righteous, inconsistent US, which wants Georgia to reform itself overnight and detach itself from post-Sovietism.

Sanctions and restrictions, without broad political and diplomatic commitment, risk being badly received across the political and social spectrum. 

Western inaction 

The US is the biggest aid donor to Georgia, and could guarantee an alternative to the Russo-Chinese path. Georgia's contribution to NATO, too, should not be squandered.

Recent rumours suggest that South Ossetia is mulling over joining Russia. This should persuade the US to increase military support for Tbilisi. Critics of the ruling Georgian Dream are exploiting the so-called Russian law to prompt a break-up of Georgia-West relations. Yet the US-Georgia military drills should continue – and even be stepped up – to demonstrate resistance to Russia’s militaristic blackmail.

Despite the objectives in the Georgian Government’s State Strategy on Occupied Territories: Engagement through Cooperation, Western powers could, by ad hoc commitment and military support to Tbilisi, help recapture separatist-held territories.  

US failure to mention Georgia’s future membership in the 2024 NATO Summit Communiqué, and the lack of a clear accession start date, invites further Russo-Chinese influence. NATO allies' reluctance to grant Georgia membership after so many years will simply bolster Russian influence and presence.

By freezing the integration process, the EU forces Georgia to depend economically on Russia, and to remain neutral on Russian expansion in the Black Sea. Russia is effectively blackmailing Georgia.

Integration and cooperation 

NATO and the EU should increase Georgia's security package. Firm military support from the US and NATO should deter Russian military provocations from the occupied territories. Military threat and the absence of Western support for Georgia’s territorial security explain Georgia's much-decried neutrality in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

NATO must deepen ties that will lead to Georgian membership within a logical timeframe. Georgia should consider former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s proposal for a West Germany-style NATO membership, which could constitute a bargaining chip for possible reunion with the separatist-held territories. This temporary solution should not, however, change the long-term objective of weakening Russia locally and undermining separatists’ hold over the internationally recognised territories under Tbilisi’s authority.

Accession as a realistic prospect

The EU should adopt a Cyprus-style solution to Georgia’s EU membership, and loosen its rule-based approach. Doing so would require the EU’s acquis, Common Foreign Policy, and European Action Service to become a geopolitical actor.

The West should remember how NATO-EU membership helped post-Soviet Bulgaria and Romania initiate internal change and boost their resilience

Considering how NATO-EU membership helped post-Soviet Bulgaria and Romania initiate internal change and boost resilience, accelerating internal changes along EU-NATO standards, the West should adopt a more realistic policy. Membership for Bulgaria and Romania prevented them falling under Russian influence.

Granting NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP), and initiating EU accession talks, would encourage Georgia's commitment – and would signal to Russia and China that the West is serious. In the absence of a MAP, to deepen cooperation and accelerate candidacy status, the allies could consider a NATO-Georgia Council, which would help with deterrence, coordination, interoperability, and intelligence.  

A different course

Russo-China presence in the Georgian seaports of Batumi and Poti is weakening Black Sea security. To counter this, Western firms should frustrate the Russo-Chinese takeover of Georgian military bases and the Anaklia deep sea port project. The West should develop industry and infrastructure to mitigate Georgia’s reliance on Russia’s oil ‘diplomacy’. Finally, American and European technology must exploit Russia's economic backwardness to tap into the Georgian market.

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