“There’s no sign in the EU’s statements about potential action. There’s nothing about sanctions, nothing about any meetings or calls for meetings or other concrete steps,” said Tinatin Akhvlediani, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “The U.S. is much quicker, much more blunt, and the EU just repeats the same demands, to drop the bill, in every statement, which we know the government will not do.”
Speaking from Tbilisi on Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien said the law “could be a turning point in what has been till now a constructive and productive partnership” between the U.S. and Georgia. He hinted Georgian Dream politicians could be personally sanctioned, and said that anti-Western rhetoric from the government, which conspiratorially claims Washington is trying to bring about regime change, is “like a Reddit page came to life.”
“The credibility of the EU is at stake,” said Viola von Cramon-Taubadel. “The discrepancy between the U.S. and the EU is not helpful — there’s a clear message from the U.S. and I expect not just High Representative Borrell but also Commissioner Várhelyi to say something very clearly about where they stand and what the position is of the Commission.”
In the absence of a clear position from Brussels, EU member states are stepping up to fill the vacuum. On Wednesday, Landsbergis, along with his counterparts from Estonia and Iceland held talks with government ministers and civil society leaders in Tbilisi, forming what the Lithuanian foreign minister called a “like-minded group” to break the deadlock in Brussels.
A meeting with the president of the Georgian parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, however, descended into farce after the delegations accused him of misrepresenting their warnings as support for the foreign agent bill. “He was lying about our position,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said at a press conference following the discussions, responding to a question from POLITICO. “But we were not well surprised.”
Meanwhile, Michael Roth, the chair of the German Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, flew to Tbilisi earlier this week but says Georgian Dream have refused to meet with him. “Accession negotiations with the EU cannot be conducted on this basis,” he told POLITICO. “Further progress can only be made once the law is withdrawn, the violence against the demonstrators is stopped, and the Georgian government returns to a constructive dialogue with civil society and the opposition.”
