The EU and Georgia: Between a rock and a hard place

Following Georgia’s 2024 parliamentary elections and the Georgian Dream party’s U-turn on EU membership, the EU finds itself in a position where it is only left with bad choices and little influence. Its past policies did not prevent the country’s democratic backsliding and arguably helped Georgian Dream to maintain and even expand its grip on the state. However, this paper argues that the EU had rather few alternative options in dealing with Georgia, and that none of them were without major disadvantages and risks. The benefit of hindsight might tempt us to overlook the various challenges that EU democracy promotion faces in a country like Georgia. The EU may not have done a “great job”. However, it needs to be acknowledged that doing a “great job” was not exactly easy.