Georgian and US servicemen during joint military exercises at the Vaziani military base, near Tbilisi, Georgia, 30 July 2017. Photo: EPA / ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE
Responding to the perceived pivot towards Moscow undertaken by Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party in recent months, Washington has halted a $95 million (€88 million) aid programme for the country, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on Wednesday.
“The Georgian government’s anti-democratic actions and false statements are incompatible with membership norms in the EU and NATO,” Blinken said in a statement.
The EU suspended Georgia’s accession process in early July, with its ambassador to Tbilisi, Paweł Herczyński, explaining that the decision had been made following the Georgian parliament’s adoption of a so-called “foreign agents” law, as well as what he called the “anti-Western” and “anti-European” rhetoric of the government in Tbilisi.
“Regrettably, Georgia’s EU accession process is stopped for now — this has been decided by EU leaders during the last European Council,” Herczyński continued.
He added that the EU had frozen €30 million that had been allocated to support Georgia’s defence sector, and that further sanctions would be discussed later in the year once parliamentary elections due in Georgia in October had been held.
The law, which mirrors a notorious 2012 Russian law that has since been used by the Kremlin as a tool to weaken civil society and silence independent media, was signed by the speaker of the Georgian parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, on 3 June. The parliament had previously overridden a presidential veto and ignored months of protest over the law.
The following day, the ruling Georgian Dream party tabled 19 homophobic bills in parliament, including bans on “LGBT propaganda” and gender reassignment.
