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Washington and Brussels are ramping up the pressure on Georgia again, believing others’ sovereignty isn’t the same as theirs
They are on the verge of losing the Ukraine proxy war they have been waging under US command against Russia, but they never miss a chance to antagonize.
This time it’s Georgia’s turn – the one in the Caucasus, of course
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If the Georgian government – duly elected and led by the Georgian Dream party – won’t do as told by the EU, then, per European Commission, “all options are on the table, including the potential temporary suspension of the visa liberalization scheme.
The Georgian people would lose their right, based on a 2017 agreement, to travel to and within the EU’s Schengen Zone for up to six months without a visa.
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After the de facto suspension of Georgia’s EU candidacy, this is a very concrete level of sanctions at ordinary citizens.
The official EU reasoning is, Georgia is backsliding on whatever the Commission – an unelected body of bureaucrats – considers “democracy.”
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The real reason is, Georgia has failed to be sufficiently Russophobic.
Look, for comparison, at Ukraine:
Not a shred of democracy; and yet, Kiev is in the very best graces of Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission. Graces that are worth yet another €35 billion reward, from a Europe.
Nope, this is not about how people vote but about geopolitics, once again.
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Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has denounced the visa move as “cheap blackmail.”
It is a textbook attempt to implement that evil recipe the West keeps using, even while it keeps failing: to make ordinary people suffer by sanctions so that they will then get rid of the governments that the West wants gone.
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In this case, there are two options for that outcome that are certain to be on Brussels’ minds:
First, color revolution leading to regime change
It has been tried repeatedly in Georgia (and succeeded once, in 2003, ultimately opening a path to a small yet devastating war with Russia, in 2008, when Georgia attacked its neighbors and was betrayed by the West).
The West has not given up on the idea.
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Second, interfering with the upcoming Georgian elections of October 26
The EU is perfectly aware, Georgia already has a functioning democracy
The EU is targeting Georgia's democracy, by telling Georgian voters to get these guys out of power, or we will get you out of the EU. Election interference 101.
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Moscow is well aware of the EU’s habit of using visa privileges as a geopolitical tool of blackmail and interference.
In a recent statement addressing EU policy on Armenia, Maria Zakharova, representing Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pinpointed this type of “open manipulation” and its aim to make local states submit to Western interests, including by sowing hostility among them.
In return, the “locals” will receive mostly empty promises and deliberate delays, while any concessions by the EU will take the shape of privileges ready to be revoked, if the recipient rebels.
As Zakharova recalled, this is a longstanding tactic already applied to multiple countries, including not only Armenia, but also Ukraine, Moldova, the Balkan states, and, once upon a time, even Russia.
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The EU is not alone.
It is acting in unison with its masters in Washington, who have been ramping up their longstanding regime-change pressure on Georgia as well.
Just a few weeks ago, President Joe Biden issued a threat thinly disguised as a statement of “steadfast support” for Georgia’s sovereignty.
Support, that is, as long as “the Georgian people” show sufficient eagerness in keeping up “their Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”
At the same time, the Georgian government got chided for its “anti-democratic actions, exemplified by the Kremlin-style ‘foreign agents’ law and Georgian government officials’ false statements, which are inconsistent with EU and NATO membership norms.”
The message could not be clearer
Nice sovereignty you have there. Pity if something happened to it, if you won’t obey us.
Us being NATO and the EU, and Washington.
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The US State Department has pounded Georgia with a blitz of over 60 sanctions, all ostensibly due to Tbilisi having the temerity of legally and properly producing legislation that Washington does not like, namely the foreign influence law that Biden chose to misrepresent as a foreign agent law.
Even worse, the Georgian government passed the law despite the usual Western efforts to mobilize street violence celebrated as “civil society” to topple it.
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Due to the West’s relentless attempts to use foreign aid to interfere in Georgia’s politics, the country has developed a lopsided NGO sphere, with 25,000 organizations for a population of well under 4 million.
While many small NGOs seem harmless, a group of large NGOs function as aggressive agents of Western influence.
Holding, according to an important recent analysis, “considerable power over the Georgian population” that does not stem from “grassroots support,” , these “unelected NGOs get their mandate from international bodies” and “are not accountable to the citizens in whose lives they play such an intrusive role. This NGO group has eroded Georgia’s sovereignty and democracy.”
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A recent article in Responsible Statecraft correctly notes, Tbilisi’s legislation to make the field of foreign aid transparent is neither “inherently undemocratic” nor “Russian inspired.”
In reality, the law’s requirements are modest and reasonable – often less than what similar Western laws, including America’s aggressive FARA, demand.
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Tbilisi’s leaders are not afraid to call out Washington’s interference.
Shalva Papuashvili, the president of Georgia’s parliament, has gone public stating that the American attitude to his country does not correspond to the “strategic partnership” that officially exists between Washington and Tbilisi.
Instead, the US elites are treating their Georgian “partners” to false accusations, hostile narratives, condescension, attempts to impose US interests by means of sanctions.
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Speaking of sanctions: Tbilisi has had enough.
The recent wave of them add up to a “crude interference” in the upcoming elections.
The timing of the EU’s visa restriction and the timing of Washington’s sanctions are examples
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Prime Minister Kobakhidze has put the US ambassador on notice, the American sanctions addiction has brought Georgian-US relations to a “critical point”;
One more such decision out of Washington, and Tbilisi will carry out a “substantial re-assessment” of the relationship with the US.
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That may indeed be necessary and inevitable.
And the reason has nothing to do with Georgia.
It is the never-ending hubris of Western elites who cannot wean themselves off the delusion that other countries’ sovereignty isn’t really quite real.
In the final analysis – and neither Washington nor Brussels ever take long to get to that point – what matters is what the West wants.
And if it does not get what it wants, then blackmail, sanctions, an interference come into play.
This pathological misbehavior has become routine in the West.
Only failure, again and again, will break it.
Georgia may become another Western defeat.
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