Police have clashed with protesters in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, after the country’s ruling party said the government would suspend talks on European Union accession until 2028.
The interior ministry on Friday reported the arrest of 43 protesters, with three police officers injured, two of whom were taken to hospital.
Police fired water cannon and deployed pepper spray and teargas to disperse protesters as masked people tried to smash their way into the parliament. Some protesters threw fireworks at police while shouting “Russians” and “slaves”.
Thousands of pro-EU protesters had blocked streets in the capital before the altercations began. The country’s outgoing pro-EU figurehead president, Salome Zourabichvili, accused the government of declaring “war” on its own people and confronted riot police, asking whether they served Georgia or Russia.
“Today marks a significant point, or rather, the conclusion of the constitutional coup that has been unfolding for several weeks,” she told a news conference alongside opposition leaders. “Today, this nonexistent and illegitimate government declared war on its own people,” she added, calling herself the country’s “sole legitimate representative”.
The government announcement came hours after the European parliament adopted a non-binding resolution rejecting the results of Georgia’s 26 October parliamentary elections, alleging “significant irregularities”.
The resolution called for new elections within a year under international supervision and for sanctions to be imposed on top Georgian officials from the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, including the prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze.
“Georgian Dream didn’t win the elections, it staged a coup. There is no legitimate parliament or government in Georgia,” said 20-year-old demonstrator Shota Sabashvili. “We will not let this self-proclaimed prime minister destroy our European future.”
Georgia’s relations with the EU have deteriorated sharply in recent months as Brussels has alleged that the government had resorted to authoritarian measures and adopted pro-Russian stances.
The ruling GD party says it is not pro-Russian, and that it is committed to democracy and integration with the west. It says it still wants to join the EU eventually, but has repeatedly engaged in diplomatic feuds with Brussels in recent years, while deepening ties with neighbouring Russia.
GD has accused the EU of “a cascade of insults”, saying in a statement it was using the prospect of accession talks to “blackmail” the country, and to “organise a revolution in the country”.
As a result, it said: “We have decided not to put the issue of opening negotiations with the European Union on the agenda until the end of 2028. Also, we refuse any budgetary grant from the European Union until the end of 2028.”
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million has the aim of EU accession written into its constitution and has long been among the most pro-western of the Soviet Union’s successor states.
With months of the downturn in relations, the EU had said that Georgia’s application for membership was frozen.
The EU’s ambassador to Georgia, Paweł Herczyński, described the effective halt of the country’s EU path as “heartbreaking” and he also condemned police violence against protesters at the pro-EU demonstration on Thursday.
Opinion polls show that about 80% of Georgians support EU membership, and the bloc’s flag flies alongside the national flag outside almost all government buildings in the country.
The pro-western opposition reacted to GD’s announcement with fury as protesters massed. Local media reported that protests also erupted in provincial cities.
Giorgi Vashadze, a prominent opposition leader, wrote on Facebook: “The self-proclaimed, illegitimate government has already legally signed the betrayal of Georgia and the Georgian people.”
Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of GD whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said the ruling party had “declared not peace, but war against its own people, its past and future”.
Her term concludes in December, and GD has put forward Mikheil Kavelashvili – a former Manchester City striker known for his staunchly anti-western views – as her successor.
The opposition said that an October election, in which official results gave the Georgian Dream bloc almost 54% of the vote, was fraudulent and have refused to take their seats. Western countries have demanded an inquiry into irregularities. A global research and data firm called the official results reported by the electoral commission “statistically impossible”.
Both GD and the country’s election commission claim the election was free and fair.
Thousands of Georgians took to the streets in late October to rally against the results of the contested parliamentary election, but the protests soon ended. The pro-EU opposition will now hope that GD’s candid admission of plans to delay the country’s EU integration aspirations will inspire more widespread and sustained protests in Tbilisi and across Georgia. There have also been signs of cracks within the foreign ministry, with a Georgian diplomat telling Reuters on Friday that more than 100 diplomats had signed an open letter saying that the government’s move to freeze E U accession talks until 2028 was unconstitutional.
Earlier on Thursday, Kobakhidze claimed that EU membership might harm Georgia’s economy because it would require Tbilisi to cancel visa-free agreements and trade deals with other countries.
The EU gave Georgia candidate status in December 2023, but has said that a raft of laws passed since by GD, including curbs on “foreign agents” and LGBTQ+ rights, are authoritarian, Russian-inspired, and obstacles to EU membership.
Foreign and domestic critics of GD say the party, which is seen as dominated by its billionaire founder, the ex-prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, is steering Georgia back towards Moscow, from which it gained independence in 1991.
Russia and Georgia have had no formal diplomatic relations since Moscow won a brief 2008 war, but have had a limited rapprochement recently.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, speaking during a visit to Kazakhstan, praised the “courage and character” he said Georgian authorities had shown in passing the law on foreign agents, which domestic critics have likened to Russian legislation.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
