Despite Georgia being granted EU candidate status in December 2023, Parliament’s resolution highlights how the ruling Georgian Dream party has pushed an increasingly authoritarian agenda, including on media freedom and LGBTQ+ rights. Coupled with changes to the country’s electoral legislation and growing anti-EU rhetoric, MEPs say these laws violate the freedom of expression, censor media, impose restrictions on critical voices in civil society and the NGO sector and discriminate against vulnerable people. They also make clear that unless the legislation is rescinded, progress cannot be made in Georgia’s relations with the EU.

Georgian government officials are fuelling a climate of hatred

MEPs want a thorough investigation of police brutality against the peaceful protestors who took to the streets in the spring of 2024 to protest against Georgian Dream’s Moscow-style law declaring Western-funded media outlets and non-governmental organisations as “foreign agents”. They…