Ukraine is the priority for those who take the future of Europe and liberal democracy seriously, but there are two other battles that demand our attention.
Moldova and Georgia, the other European Union (EU) candidate countries that share a border with Russia, are currently caught in an onslaught of hybrid attacks aiming to undermine and ultimately destroy the bloc’s plans of enlargement to the East.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire former prime minister and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, referred to the EU and US as a “global party of war” at a government-organized rally on April 29. It marked an extraordinarily open attack on the bloc from the man who effectively leads the ruling party and whose country was offered candidate status only in December.
The speech, to an audience of state employees — many of whom were bussed to Tbilisi from the regions — was straightforward in its commitment to the repression of opponents of Georgian Dream’s resurrected law on so-called foreign influence (referred to by protesters as “Russia’s law” for its similarity to the Foreign Agents Law which Russia adopted in 2012 and increasingly used to stamp out dissent.)
It bodes ill not just for civil society organizations targeted for their independence and criticism of the ruling party, but also for Georgia’s integration into the EU and NATO.
Defeated by widespread public protests last year, the Russian law was brought back in April, half a year before general elections scheduled for October 20.
That the government was prepared to resurrect the law months before the European Commission’s decision on whether to recommend the start of accession negotiations confirms[MG1] that joining Europe and aligning with its fundamental values, is no longer part of the ruling party’s vision. The EU has made clear that the law is an affront to its values and would derail Georgian accession.
The government had committed to honoring the Georgian people’s support for closer integration with Europe, but the pledge has been watered down in statements from the party elite, including another former prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, who said Georgia is not ready for more Europe.
The interventions came after more than two weeks of huge protests by civil society groups and other opponents of the proposed law, suppressed by water cannons, teargas, and police brutality.
The prospects for Georgia’s democracy and European integration will depend on the perseverance of the country’s highly energized and independent civil society, which is also the main target of government attempts at suppression under the new law.
Parliamentary opposition is relatively weak, and vocal non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and independent media are seen and treated as the ruling party’s main competitors in the battle for influence over the population.
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Their influence is intensely disliked, not just by the Georgian Dream government, but also by openly pro-Russian right-wing groups.
Georgia is not alone in facing growing efforts to block its closer alignment with the West. There are also attempts by Russian proxies to steer Moldova off its chosen path of EU integration.
The country’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu will be standing for re-election on October 20, making it a crucial year for the country’s relations with the West. Sandu’s approval ratings have been undermined by economic hardship and challenges to reforming her impoverished country, which has only just weaned itself off dependence on Russian energy.
By holding a referendum on EU membership alongside the presidential election, Sandu and her party hope to energize the pro-EU electorate to come to the ballot box (polls suggest a plurality of Moldovans will vote in favor.) It may help increase the chances of her re-election, or at least fix the country on a path to EU integration.
There will be no shortage of challenges in the run-up to the referendum, as the opening salvos from the Russian state propaganda machine have clearly indicated. The separatist leaders of Transnistria, a strip of Moldova under Russian military control, will also provide cause for concern, especially if the Moldovan government implements plans to reduce energy imports from the self-declared republic.
Georgia and Moldova’s populations have made clear their support for joining Europe, and should one or both be dislodged from the path to integration, the Kremlin will score a major victory.
Ukraine is not the only place where the future of democratic Europe is at the crossroads, and the EU will need to do everything in its power to support democratic forces in both Georgia and Moldova, enabling their voices — and those of the majority of the population — to be decisive and to outweigh Russia’s lavishly funded dark campaigns to oppose them.
The outcome matters first and foremost for them, but also for a Europe struggling to safeguard its Eastern neighborhood as an area where the values of democracy and human rights prevail over dictatorship and imperialism.
Marija Golubeva is a Distinguished Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She was a Member of the Latvian Parliament (2018-2022) and was Minister of the Interior from 2021-2022. A public policy expert, she has worked for ICF, a consultancy company in Brussels, and as an independent consultant for European institutions in the Western Balkans and Central Asia.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Europe’s Edge
CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America.