Georgia’s pro-EU protesters revolt a year after accession process halted

“I represent the future of this country,” George Arabley said. He has participated in protests on the streets of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, almost every night since they began a year ago.

Massive demonstrations were violently suppressed by police and were attended by tens of thousands of Georgians angry at Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s decision on November 28, 2024 to suspend EU membership.

“I’m a member of the 1990s generation. I saw firsthand the dark times after the Civil War,” George said. “Much of this is caused by Russian influence in post-Soviet countries. We don’t want to go back there.”

Since then, Georgians have seen the “disintegration of democracy,” In the words of European governmentsand sparked accusations of Russian-style rule.

On the streets, the protests have turned into a brutal war of attrition.

For months, Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue has been blocked for several hours every night. New laws and a heavy police presence forced protesters to adapt, marching through neighboring streets and facing nightly arrests.

Georgia’s Dream government has imposed hefty fines for blocking roads, brought criminal charges against young protesters and recently passed a law allowing jail terms of up to 14 days for first-time offenders blocking traffic, with repeat offenders facing up to a year in prison.

“Prisoners of the regime go free,” read a giant banner heading toward the nearby Supreme Court.

“They tried everything they could to suppress the protests… but the fact is they failed,” said Nata Kolidze, whose husband Zura Japaridze is one of six leading opposition figures jailed after refusing to testify before a parliamentary committee about alleged crimes by the previous government.

The six were sentenced to up to eight months in prison and banned from holding public office for two years.

Prosecutors have since announced new charges against eight opposition leaders, including Japaridze. They now face up to 15 years in prison for allegedly sabotaging and aiding foreign powers.

Nata Koridze’s husband will be released on December 22, but she said he will appear in court again three days later.

They are accused of communicating with Western partners about government abuses of power (standard democratic practice) as evidence of betrayal of national interests.

Japaridze, like all imprisoned politicians, is held in solitary confinement.

“Zula has not seen anyone except doctors and guards,” she said.

Georgia’s path to EU membership, once a cornerstone of its post-Soviet identity, is now further away than ever.

What was revealed in the EU’s annual enlargement report earlier this month Its ambassador to Georgia called the findings “devastating”concluding that it is now considered a “nominal” EU candidate.

“Georgia will not be able to become a member of the EU, neither in 2030 nor after,” said Pawel Herczynski, rejecting the government’s commitment to secure EU membership before 2030.

The BBC contacted the chairman of the European Integration Parliamentary Committee and other Georgian Dream MPs for comment but no one answered.

The government’s public response has been increasingly hostile to its foreign critics.

Parliament speaker Shalva Papashvili accused the EU of “ideological and political dictatorship”, telling pro-government television this month that “Brussels today does not want a Georgia like ours”.

“They want a country that stands on one foot,” he complained. “Brussels’ policies and practices must change. For them, the Georgian people and their choices mean nothing, zero.”

The Georgian Dream party, in power since 2012, won 54% of the vote in last year’s disputed parliamentary election, which monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe security mission said were marred by a number of flaws, including intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, especially public sector employees.

Since then, all opposition parties have boycotted Parliament, leaving it entirely in the hands of the government. This means the increasingly tough legislation has been passed without opposition.

In addition to hefty fines for protesters who block roads, there is a restrictive broadcasting law and a foreign appropriations law that requires all foreign funding for civil society and media to be approved by government committees.

Hundreds of protesters were fined and dozens were jailed, including the famous actor Andro Chichinadze, who was jailed for two years for allegedly organizing the protests.

His theater – once Tbilisi’s largest-attended theater – has closed in solidarity.

Pro-Europeans here generally believe that the Georgian government is acting in Russia’s interests.

They point to ruling party founder billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made her fortune in Russia in the 1990s; legislation that mirrors Russia’s laws targeting civil society; the government’s refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine and increasingly hostile anti-Western rhetoric.

Georgian leaders rejected this assertion, saying their approach to Russia was “pragmatic” and that their first responsibility was to maintain peace with their northern neighbor.

“Where are the facts?” Iraqi Prime Minister Kobashidze denied pro-Russian bias in a recent TV interview. He said the government was “responsible to Georgian society that wants to maintain peace in the country.”

Mzia Amaglobeli, one of Georgia’s most respected journalists who was jailed for two years for slapping a police officer, doesn’t think so.

“Russia is conquering us without a war. Oligarchs are ruling our countries, depriving us of our European future and legitimizing autocratic, authoritarian rule. We need the support of the democratic world,” she told the BBC in a handwritten letter from prison.

Amaglobeli, will be awarded the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament Speaking at a “Free Thoughts” event next month, she said she had lost sight in one eye and that her remaining vision was deteriorating in solitary confinement: “I couldn’t even read for 10-15 minutes at a time.”

Georgia’s democratic decline intensified even before last year’s elections, with a Russian-style foreign influence law introduced in June 2024 targeting civil society and independent media.

Students played a major role in the protests at the time, and the government had planned sweeping education reforms for February next year. Georgia’s 19 state universities will be required to focus on a single subject under the slogan “One City, One Teacher.”

The reforms will address some obvious problems, including the over-concentration of universities in Tbilisi, duplication of programs and insufficient state funding.

The Prime Minister believes that funds should be “focused on completing national tasks.” Leaders at Elijah State University, a prominent research institution in Georgia, say the reforms are more about imposing political control and eliminating free space.

“After political parties, the media and NGOs, universities must also come under pressure,” said Ilya State University rector Nina Doborjginidze. “If students are driven out of the capital, they will disappear from the political scene.”

“This has nothing to do with the quality of education, this is a political project,” added Vice-Chancellor Georgi Gwalia. “This is a sudden shift in Georgia’s foreign policy, from one of the most pro-European countries in the region to the West’s most difficult partner, and towards more authoritarian powers such as Russia and especially China.”

Back on Rustaveli Street, Rusudan Lomidze, a teacher who participates in daily protests, said Georgia’s fate was inseparable from that of Ukraine.

“If Ukraine is forced to sign a surrender agreement, it would be an absolute disaster for us. Our children are fighting in Ukraine, they are fighting for Ukraine and Georgia.”

Crowds are smaller than a year ago, but despite the risks, hundreds of protesters still gather every night.

Nata Koridze looks back on her years as a diplomat working on EU and NATO integration and now believes “all of it has collapsed”.

“But the protests embody an idea. An idea that can last for decades, hundreds of years.”