Russia-Georgia relations

Relations between Georgia and Russia are characterised by tensions between the two countries, which have regularly erupted into violence. The 2008 Russia-Georgia war, which lasted 12 days, is the most prominent example. A priority spelt out by then-president Mikhail Saakashvili after his election in 2004, was to try and bring back the renegade regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia under Georgian authority. After, Saakashvili quickly established authority in Adjara, he shifted attention towards both separatist regions. This increased tensions with Russia. These tensions were already present with the pro-Western change of power in Georgia as part of the 2003 Rose Revolution. Russia, has spoken out against Georgian NATO and EU accession in the future In August 2008 tensions between Russia and Georgia started escalating. An incident of a Russian spy plane shot down over Georgian territory resulted in a brief full-scale war. At the end of this war in which Russia was an aggressor, Kremlin-supported puppet regimes claimed territorial control over parts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and were consequently recognised by the Kremlin. However, according to international law, both regions remain part of Georgian sovereign territory.

The initial international response gravely condemned Russia for its actions and demanded withdrawal from Georgia. Specifically, the US started lobbying intensively for a sped-up Georgian accession to the NATO; something that European countries were somewhat divided in, even if equally condemning Russia. As time went by and investigations were launched, however, more and more reprimands started to appear towards the Georgian side as well as the Russian side. In October/November 2008 an independent international investigation group was created to look into the August events, headed by Heidi Tagliavini, a Swiss diplomat who served as UN Secretary General’s special representative to Georgia from 2002 to 2006. The report eventually putsthe blame on both sides.

After the war, both Georgia and Russia attempted to normalise relationships between both countries. The Georgian-Russian deal allowed Russia to proceed with its World Trade Organization application. In 2012, Georgia introduced visa-free entrance for Russian passport holders. From the Russian side, a 7-year embargo on Georgian wine, one of the countries primary export products, was lifted in 2013. In October 2014, Russia eased visa procedures for Georgian citizens. However, the normalisation of relations between both countries failed to bring an end to the dispute over the breakaway regions, and support among the Georgian population for dialogue with Russia depleted over time.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 raised concerns in Georgia. The war raises the question of whether Russia will further neglect Georgia’s territorial integrity. It resulted in Georgia’s accelerated application for EU membership, the process for which had already begun before the war. At an earlier stage, Georgia had already condemned the Russian annexation of Crimea as illegitimate. Georgia has also condemned Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and continues to support Kyiv politically and diplomatically. Yet Georgia has not participated applying sanctions against Russia. As a result, Georgia is not on the Kremlin’s list of unfriendly countries. After Putin announced a partial mobilisation of military reserves in September 2022, long queues formed at the Georgian border. As one of the few neighbouring countries to which Russians can travel visa-free, Georgia has already hosted thousands of Russians fleeing conscription.

Domestic politics

Georgia is seen as one of the frontrunners in the region when it comes to democracy and human rights. The country scores relatively well on relevant international indexes, such as Freedom House, which describes it as ‘partly free’. It further has a lively and vocal civil society, an active opposition and political plurality, which often results in harsh political confrontations and a high level of polarisation. Since 2012, the Georgian Dream (GD) coalition is in power with, currently, a constitutional majority in parliament. While doing relatively well in the areas of democratisation and human rights, there are still some concerns. One area of concern is media freedom in Georgia with an unprecedented number of physical assaults on journalists in 2021. Moreover, there is still a lack of accountability for abuse among law enforcement. Georgia also has a disproportionately strict drug policy and a long history of discrimination against the LGBTI community.

Opposition party United National Movement (UNM) has claimed that its prominent members are subjected to politically motivated investigations and trials, with its founder Mikhail Saakashvili unable to formally lead the party having lost his Georgian citizenship in 2015, after gaining the Ukrainian citizenship, and unable to return to Georgia as he is wanted by Georgian authorities. In a similar manner, in February of 2021 the UNM’s leader Nika Melia was convicted of organizing “mass violence” during a 2019 opposition protest. The party claims the following arrest was purely politically motivated. Even though Melia was granted amnesty for the 2019 protests, the struggle between the UNM and GD continues on this issue.

There are also some concerns surrounding the role of GD founder and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili: there are allegations that he still wields quite some power behind the scenes while not having any formal (political) position. Ivanishvili’s wealth has given him a distinct position of power in Georgian politics – his personal wealth is the same as one-third of Georgia’s GDP. Informal actors having a big influence on political choices continues to be a challenge for Georgia. Additionally, critics say the judicial branch does not work independently from the government and the parliament, whose interests often affect the judges’ decisions. Georgia is eager to continue improving its ties with the West by joining the EU and NATO. It has signed and ratified the EU Association Agreement (which includes the long-expected visa-free travel possibilities to most EU member states) and has strived for NATO membership since the Rose Revolution.

Georgia’s EU bid

Georgia has aspired EU candidacy status since the Russian invasion of its northern provinces Abkhazia and Northern Ossetia. It’s pathway to become candidate in 2024 had been accelerated due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, subsequently handing in its EU bids alongside Moldova and Ukraine in March 2022. In June 2022, Ukraine and Moldova acquired a positive EU endorsement, however Georgia remained empty-handed. The European Commission established Georgia’s eligibility to become a member of the EU in the future. However, the commission also said that Georgia still has to fulfil key conditions on political polarization, media freedom, judicial reform, and “de-oligarchization”, before granting a positive recommendation towards EU candidacy. The Commission will review the case of Georgia again at the end of 2022 to “assess how Georgia meets the number of conditions before granting its candidate status.”

The “de-oligarchization” of Georgian society will be presumably be the key condition for Georgia to acquire EU candidacy. The current government, led by the Georgian Dream party is under major influence of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili – whose capital equivalates one-third of Georgia’s GDP. Earlier in June, the European Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution that called for sanctions on Ivanishvili for his “destructive role” in Georgian politics. Furthermore, the Georgian Dream-led administration has cracked down on media freedom, civil society and judicial independence. This all has been a major shake-up of Georgia being a frontrunning candidate for EU aspirations in Eastern Europe. The deferral of the European Commission led tens of thousands of Georgians to rally on June 20 in the capital Tbilisi.

National minorities in Georgia

Georgia is a multilingual and multi-ethnic country. National minorities enjoy full (political) rights under the constitution and make up of 13%  of Georgia’s population according to a 2014 census. The two largest national minority groups in the country are the Azeri (6%) and the Armenians (5%). Although Azeri and Armenians minority groups hold Georgian passports, the often consider themselves to be citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Besides these groups, a variety of smaller groups live within the state borders. Nonetheless, studies commissioned by Carnegie showed in September 2020 that minorities consider themselves to be loyal towards the Georgian state. Only 16% considered their ethnicity more important than their Georgian citizenship.  Because minorities do not often speak Georgian, their level of political participation is relatively low. Language barriers between speakers of Georgian and minority languages are considered to reinforce alienation of ethnic minorities. However, especially in the run-up to the latest presidential election, more information in Armenian, Azeri, Ossetian and Russian was provided.

There are no ethnic political parties, although several parties have included members of national minorities in lists and as majoritarian candidates, nominating them in districts where minorities form a substantial part of the population. To enhance integration of minorities in Georgia, the government established the Civil Integration and Tolerance Council. To further improve the  integration of ethnic minorities in civic-nation building in Georgia, practical steps need to be taken to create a strategy which oversees equal and complete involvement of minorities in Georgian politics and society.

Gender participation and women’s rights

While there are no legal obstacles for women, Georgian politics remain dominated by men. Previously, Nino Burjanadze was the woman to hold the highest political function, but she left the then-ruling UNM shortly before the parliamentary elections of 2008. However, in recent years there have been some improvements regards to gender inclusion in Georgian politics. Salome Zourabichvili was elected as Georgia’s first female president in December 2018. In 2020 there have also been several electoral changes that guarantee participation of women in politics. Political parties require at least a quarter of their elected representatives to be female. This had led to at least 30 women out of a total of 150 MPs being elected.

On a local level, politics remains more male-dominated. Parties hold the opinion that they would like to nominate more female candidates, but the problem is rather that there are not enough women who want to take part. A career in politics is often seen as something ‘unfeminine’ in Georgian society, mainly because the political scene is often described as “rough-edged” and influenced by a “macho culture”. Moreover, many women quit university when they marry or get pregnant and exchange their education for the family. Georgia has made much progress when it comes to adopting anti-discrimination legislation. However, gender stereotypes remain deeply rooted and a significant gap continues to exist with regards to economic participation and opportunities.

LGBTI rights

Georgia’s LGBTI community face discrimination and challenges that non-LGBTI people do not have to face. Abuse and physical violence towards LGBTI people remains common as well. However, the country has been doing its best to gets its human rights record somewhat in line with Western countries. In 2014 a big step was taken, when the discrimination against LGBTI people became prohibited by law. Committing a crime based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity aggravates the prosecution. Same-sex marriage remains prohibited though, and in 2018 was even constitutionally banned. Previously, the constitution described marriage in a gender neutral way. That changed when President Zourabichvili was elected President in 2018. Several human rights organizations called on Georgia to legalize same-sex marriage.

As Georgia became more influenced by highly traditional Orthodox Christian values after the fall of communism, public opinion towards LGBTI people remained negative. A Pew Research Centre poll in 2016 still found that 93% of Georgians believed homosexuality should not be accepted by society. Yet, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) polls showed that the percentage of Georgians who think that LGBTI rights were important is increasing. In 2019 this accounted to 27%, with 38% among the age group of 18-35. This has much to do with football players like Guram Kashia expressing support for LGBTI rights, as well as Nino Bolkvadz running as the first openly gay politician in the 2017 local elections.