Another Yanukovych? - Georgia’s Foreign Agent Law and it’s Implications for Peace in Europe
By Matthew Trunkey
On Tuesday, May 14th, 2024 the Georgian Parliament passed a controversial “Foreign Agent Law” that would require any organization that receives more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or face severe fines. The legislation was modeled after similar laws, such as an earlier attempt in Georgia or the 2017 attempt in Moldova, from the Kremlin to snuff out opposition and civil society in nations increasingly turning towards the US and EU for their futures.
The law was introduced by the ruling party of Georgia, Georgian Dream. The party has been in power since 2012 and was founded by Georgian Oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili to normalize relations between Georgia and Russia after the disastrous 2008 war. The US State Department credits the party with undermining democracy and sabotaging US-Georgian relations by turning the small mountainous nation away from the West, specifically away from integration into the EU. The party has increasingly brought Georgia back into the Russian sphere of influence, to the detriment of Georgia's constitutional provision to join the EU. This democratic backsliding has been a theme for the past decade, but the foreign agent law is seen by Western observers as a major step to curb EU Ascension and to integrate Georgian society with Putin’s Russia.
The law’s passage sparked major protests in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi. Hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the capital, a significant portion of the country’s 3.7 million population. Georgian security forces have brutally cracked down on the protestors by attacking and dragging protesters into cars to be taken away. This has also included media figures, civil society leaders, and opposition members being beaten in front of their offices and homes, and residences of public opposition figures being broken into and vandalized. The Georgian Ministry of the Interior has confirmed that this crackdown will continue in support of the foreign agent law.
Laura Thornton, an American activist with years of experience living in Georgia, said the law is the culmination of GD’s paranoia and desire to stay in power. The law will help them break down critical checks on the nation’s upcoming elections in October, heavily increasing the odds that GD retains its majority in the nation’s Parliament. From the Western point of view, GD has made a choice to turn away from the West by abandoning attempts at democratization. By doing so they now harness the ability to undermine free elections, as election reforms demanded by the EU and the USA are ignored.
Many Western analysts have drawn comparisons between the ongoing protests in Georgia and the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine. The Euromaidan protests erupted in late 2013 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reversed Ukraine’s accession to the EU and signed an economic agreement with Russia. The resulting protests forced Yanukovych to flee the country and led to the revision of the Ukrainian Constitution. Following the election of a pro-Western government in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and incited rebellion in the Donbas. This culminated with the ongoing 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
However, a handful of experts are hesitant to equate the Georgian protests with the Euromaidan protests. While there may be various similarities between the situations, such as Kremlin disinformation, the potential for escalation of violence, and the presence of a pro-Russia oligarch in power, there are also significant differences. The ongoing Georgian protests are not as centralized or political as the Euromaidan protests, instead being decentralized and youth-led. Additionally, they do not have a political agenda apart from seeing the foreign agent law overturned, and unlike in Ukraine, the opposition party is not actively involved in the protests. Ultimately there is less of a feeling of revolution within Georgia, especially since the scars of the 2003 Rose Revolution and 2008 Russo-Georgian War, which killed hundreds, are still fresh in citizen’s minds.
The GD is using the fear of potential revolution as political ammunition to quash the protests. Since the Georgian public is, in general, opposed to a revolution, the ruling party can cast these protesters as causing significant public disturbance. This allows them to justify the brutal repression of protests, and it is, therefore, inadvisable to Western policymakers to invoke comparisons between the Georgian protests and Euromaidan as it places further political pressure on the protestors.
In response to the foreign agent bill, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a series of new sanctions against Georgia. The primary component of the new sanctions will be restrictions on visas for individuals “responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia”. Blinken expressed the United States’ displeasure in the bill, stating that it would “stifle the exercise of freedoms of association and expression” and hamper media outlets.
The Georgian government responded to the sanctions by accusing the US of blackmailing the country, with GD stating on Facebook that “no blackmail whatsoever can force us to go against our country.” The GD views the sanctions as an attempt to restrict Georgian independence and sovereignty.
A more extreme step being discussed in American political spheres is the United States denouncing the integrity of the upcoming Georgian elections. Since the foreign agent law fundamentally disrupts election processes in Georgia by destroying checks and observation of elections by international mediators, the American government believes international condemnation of the election may sway Georgian Dream to repeal the law, however, this step would also severely harm relations between the West and the GD. As of now, it is unlikely that this step would be taken, especially as tensions between Russia and the USA soar over the Ukraine crisis.
