On the rugged shores of the Black Sea, nestled in the heart of the South Caucasus, Georgia once again finds itself caught in someone else’s power game. But this time, the pressure isn’t coming from the east—from Russia—or from the south and its patchwork of regional conflicts. It’s coming from the very direction Georgia has spent decades moving toward: the West. From the capitals that once promised respect for democratic choices, now come ultimatums dressed in the language of moral superiority and double standards.
Take the recent remarks by German Ambassador Peter Fischer in Tbilisi—not so much a diplomatic nudge as a political broadside. His statement questioning Georgia’s "sincerity" in its European ambitions, accusing the government of “lying about the EU,” was nothing short of a public dressing-down. Formally, it was a critique of rhetoric. In reality, it was a warning shot: the path to Europe, we’re told, demands capitulation—abandoning dignity, historical memory, and national autonomy.
Fischer’s message was blunt: “If you want to join such an organization, maybe don’t speak badly about it.” But since when does aspiring to join a union mean forfeiting your right to criticize it? What happened to that cornerstone of democratic civilization the EU claims to represent? Or does that principle not extend to candidate countries?
Fischer has long stepped out of his diplomatic lane. At times, he sounds more like a political activist on a soapbox than a representative of the German federal government. His public attacks on major Georgian broadcasters, his demands for “clarifications,” his accusations of disinformation—these don’t resemble diplomacy. They resemble a campaign. He’s not acting above Georgian politics; he’s elbow-deep in them. He insists there’s no proof of his support for the opposition. But what else are Western grants, political consulting, and involvement in protest movements if not evidence of meddling?
And it’s not just Fischer. Berlin’s Foreign Ministry itself has demanded that Georgia change course—this isn’t the whisper of a diplomat. It’s the thunderclap of a nation. At this point, we’re no longer talking about diplomacy. We’re talking about geopolitical intervention dressed up as moral concern.
All this is unfolding as Georgia tries to steer a neutral course through a world spiraling into confrontation. Tbilisi has refused to open a second front against Russia. It has declined the role of pawn in another global showdown. The West hasn’t forgiven that.
The so-called “foreign agent” legislation, resistance to transnational LGBTQ+ advocacy, and pushback against external dictates—Berlin now paints all of this as a “backslide from democracy.” But since when is conservative policymaking incompatible with democratic choice? Or is democracy, in Brussels and Berlin’s eyes, valid only as long as you follow the script?
Then came another bombshell: Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili accused the French embassy of funneling money into radical groups, supposedly disguised as tourist organizations but, in fact, laying the groundwork for unrest. How else to explain the tight coordination between European diplomats and anti-government demonstrations?
This isn’t paranoia. It’s calculation. More and more, Western embassies in Georgia act less like diplomatic missions and more like operational headquarters—pushing political agendas under the banner of “European values.”
The message to Tbilisi is clear: conform, or else. But for a nation that has paid dearly for its independence, the price of submission might be too high.
Rhetoric as a Weapon: How Brussels Is Rewriting the Rules of Engagement
When diplomats—supposedly guardians of the Vienna Convention and neutral mediators—start speaking in ultimatums, when talk of rights and freedoms is replaced with demands for “unquestioning love” for the European Union, we’re no longer dealing with diplomacy. We’re dealing with political engineering. And that’s exactly what countries like Georgia and Azerbaijan now face: governments that embrace a European future, but refuse to pay for it with political self-destruction.
On paper, joining the European Union is a technical process, built on measurable criteria—like the Maastricht standards of 1992 and the Copenhagen criteria from 1993. These benchmarks include:
- Stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, rule of law, and human rights
- A functioning market economy
- The capacity to adopt the obligations of EU membership, including compliance with the acquis communautaire
But in recent years, this supposedly neutral process has grown increasingly politicized. In 2022 and 2023, Ukraine and Moldova were granted candidate status, despite lingering questions about institutional strength. According to Freedom House, Ukraine scored 6.61 out of 7 in perceived corruption (where 7 is the worst), and Moldova 6.07. Georgia, meanwhile, performed significantly better—with a 4.36—but was denied the same status in 2022.
So if not objective benchmarks, what exactly determines who gets to move forward?
The answer is loyalty—not to democratic ideals, but to the EU’s current political narrative. For Georgia, this means abandoning legislation on foreign agents, shelving conservative social reforms, aligning media rhetoric with Brussels orthodoxy, and toeing the line on the war in Ukraine.
In April 2025, German Ambassador Peter Fischer made the EU’s expectations crystal clear:
“Georgia wants to join the EU but spreads false information about the EU. That’s not acceptable. You can’t join an organization and criticize it at the same time.”
That remark isn’t just tone-deaf—it’s revealing. What should be a conversation about policy and reform is being replaced with a loyalty test. Nowhere in the Copenhagen criteria is there a clause that says candidates must praise the EU, refrain from criticism, or display ideological affection.
In fact, according to a March 2025 poll by NDI Georgia, 81% of Georgians support EU accession—but only 27% approve of how the EU currently treats Georgia. That’s not hostility. That’s democratic maturity: a population that wants integration, but on fair terms.
In this context, the message from European diplomats—support us without question, or be labeled an outsider—isn’t diplomacy. It’s coercion. The aim isn’t consensus but compliance. And the tool of choice? Rhetorical sabotage, designed to delegitimize any government that dares to question the script.
This isn’t a new tactic. The Balkans saw it in the 1990s. Eastern Europe dealt with it in the 2000s. Ukraine, most starkly, felt the full force of it in 2013. The method is simple:
- Create a false binary: You’re either “for Europe” and obey—or against democracy.
- Paint any independent position as “pro-Russian” or “populist.”
- Direct media coverage and funding exclusively toward groups parroting the “correct” slogans.
In Georgia, this translates into a massive influx of foreign grants to anti-government NGOs and media outlets. According to a 2024 report by Transparency International Georgia, 57% of all external grants to the civil sector went to organizations openly opposing the current government. At the same time, groups promoting neutrality, traditional values, or national sovereignty have been all but cut off from Western funding.
Want the full picture? Just look at the global rankings:
- World Bank Doing Business 2020: Georgia ranked 7th globally, ahead of France and Germany
- Transparency International CPI 2023: Georgia placed 41st—best in the South Caucasus, and above Italy (42) and Greece (49)
- Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom 2024: Georgia came in 26th, outranking both Japan and Belgium
These aren’t the signs of backsliding—they’re signs of a government pushing steady, real reform. But you won’t hear much about that in Western press statements. Those numbers don’t fit the narrative of a struggling democracy that needs “saving.”
The real danger here is that by replacing dialogue with intimidation, Western diplomacy is eroding the very trust it claims to defend. Growing criticism of the EU in Georgia and Azerbaijan isn’t fueled by “hostile broadcasters” or “populist demagogues.” It’s fueled by the glaring disconnect between Europe’s declared values and its practice of double standards.
And the backlash is already underway. A recent IRI poll (April 2025) shows trust in the EU among Georgians has dropped from 62% in 2021 to just 49%. Among young people, skepticism has surged to 42%. That’s a warning sign—not from Euroskeptics, but from pro-European citizens who are tired of being treated like second-class candidates.
They’re not saying no to Europe. They’re saying no to a Europe that demands silence in exchange for progress.
A Regional Power Play
At a May 2025 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Senator Marco Rubio—known for his hawkish foreign policy stance and a long track record of anti-China and anti-Iran initiatives—was asked point-blank: should Washington consider sanctions against Georgia and Azerbaijan? The room didn’t erupt in applause. There was no immediate consensus. But the fact that the question was asked at all—on the record, in one of the most powerful legislative chambers on Earth—wasn’t incidental. It was a signal. And a deeply troubling one.
This wasn’t about reacting to a specific law passed in Tbilisi or a singular military action in Karabakh. It was about something bigger: a creeping campaign to reshape the South Caucasus—geopolitically, institutionally, and ideologically. And at the center of it are two nations—Georgia and Azerbaijan—that are refusing to be mere subjects in someone else’s grand design.
What we’re witnessing isn’t a series of disconnected events. Sanctions chatter, diplomatic scolding, and media messaging are all part of a coordinated pressure campaign that’s gained steam since early 2025. The stated reasons? “Democratic backsliding,” “civil society suppression,” “human rights concerns.” The real reason? These countries are charting independent foreign policies, no longer content with being managed satellites.
Consider Georgia’s 2024 law on foreign agents—modeled, ironically, on the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). It requires foreign-funded NGOs to disclose their sponsors. But while no one in Washington seems eager to revisit FARA itself, Georgia was lambasted for “betraying democratic values” and “abandoning the European path.”
Azerbaijan, for its part, drew criticism in September 2023 after it reestablished full constitutional control over the Karabakh region—without foreign troops, without third-party mediators, without turning the region into yet another never-ending “peacekeeping” project managed by Western bureaucrats. In short, Baku broke the script.
The backlash was swift. By December 2023, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for a “reassessment” of EU-Azerbaijan relations. In March 2024, Germany suspended parts of its technical aid to Tbilisi. And in February 2025, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill to sanction “Georgian officials undermining democracy.” Translation: you’re either with us—or you're a threat.
And all this is playing out alongside an aggressive information campaign. Take German Ambassador Peter Fischer, for instance, who publicly questioned Georgia’s European trajectory:
“If a country wants to join the EU, it cannot criticize the EU. That’s unacceptable.”
But the facts don’t back the rhetoric. According to a December 2024 CRRC Georgia poll, 81% of Georgians support EU membership—but 64% believe the country should maintain an independent foreign policy, even if it clashes with Brussels. In other words, Georgians want integration, not surrender.
It’s a similar story in Azerbaijan. A January 2025 survey by the Social Research Center showed that while 74% of Azerbaijanis support strategic partnerships with the West, only 29% believe those ties should come at the expense of relationships with Turkey and other regional allies. This isn’t anti-Western sentiment. It’s strategic balance.
Meanwhile, alternative power structures are doing quiet but consequential work. A March 2025 parliamentary report in Georgia revealed that more than $143 million in foreign aid—mostly from USAID—had been funneled into “civil society strengthening” programs over five years. A full 35% of that went to NGOs openly engaged in opposition politics. Similar trends are playing out in Armenia, where media outlets aligned with Western narratives have seen a surge in funding tied to EU integration.
In February 2025, Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili put it bluntly:
“Foreign funding is being used to build parallel political infrastructure that works against the legitimate government.”
This isn’t new. It’s a repackaged version of the playbook used in Ukraine—and now fine-tuned for the South Caucasus. The formula? Manufacture the image of “popular pressure,” back it with a media blitz, and add the threat of sanctions as leverage.
That’s why Rubio’s remarks weren’t just idle speculation. They were a dry run—a way to gauge the appetite for “targeted measures”: visa bans, frozen bank accounts, suspended aid from USAID and GIZ, cuts to academic exchanges, pressure on national banks via international financial institutions.
Here’s the kicker: neither Georgia nor Azerbaijan is under UN sanctions. Neither is at war. Neither has launched aggression against its neighbors. Their only offense is saying no to imposed political orthodoxy. And for that, they’re already being cast as villains.
What’s at stake here is more than diplomatic protocol or media spin. It’s the very right of nations to define their own course—without being punished for not playing the role assigned to them. The game isn’t just rigged. It’s being rewritten in real time. And the South Caucasus may be the testing ground for how far this new model of coercive alignment can go.
The Ghost of the Cordon Sanitaire
The concept of a "cordon sanitaire" was born in post-World War I Europe—a string of buffer states erected between Soviet Russia and the West to contain ideological contagion. Today, a century later, that logic is being recycled in the South Caucasus. Only now, the perceived threat isn’t Moscow’s revolution—it’s the rise of independent geopolitical actors unwilling to play by Western rules.
Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are being groomed, once again, to serve as a buffer—not between East and West, but between Western hegemony and sovereign ambition. The goal isn’t integration. It’s containment. Keep the region locked in managed uncertainty. No real union with the East. No deep ties with Turkey. No regional consolidation. Just enough friction and foreign meddling to prevent the emergence of a stable, self-reliant bloc.
The toolkit is familiar: activists, diplomatic pressure, punitive resolutions, media narratives, and the ever-present threat of sanctions. The objective? To smother any attempt at successful sovereign development before it can serve as a model for others.
The European Union now finds itself tangled in its own moral contradictions. Candidate countries are no longer simply asked to reform—they’re expected to emotionally surrender. The price of entry isn’t just compliance. It’s capitulation. And yet the EU seems to forget: lasting partnership cannot be built without mutual respect.
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and perhaps soon others in the region, are no longer willing to be treated as backdrops for someone else’s foreign policy. They don’t need lectures. They need clear procedures, consistent criteria, and honest dialogue. Rhetoric, once the symbol of European soft power, has become a weapon of substitution—a stand-in for genuine engagement. But when words replace substance, the very idea behind the European project begins to erode.
If Europe still wants to be a union of peoples—not an empire of preferences—it must stop resorting to blackmail and return to equal-footing diplomacy. Before it's too late.
But this new rift reveals a darker truth: Brussels doesn’t want partners. It wants subordinates. Georgia wants Europe, yes—but on its own terms. With dignity. Without swallowing double standards. Without forgetting its tragedies. Without betraying its memory.
That is what true Europeanism should be. Not cosmetic. Not performative. Not propaganda. But sovereign, deliberate, and loud enough to carry its own voice.
When ambassadors start acting like party operatives and diplomats insert themselves directly into domestic politics, it’s no longer “friendly partnership.” It’s a veiled form of foreign control. And Georgia has endured worse. It will endure this, too—but with clearer eyes and a sharper understanding of who stands as an ally, and who merely watches over the region on someone else’s behalf.
They’re not burning bridges. They’re not declaring neutrality. What they’re demanding is parity—engagement without double standards, cooperation without ideological strings attached. They want to be treated as actors, not arenas.
And that’s what truly unsettles the West. Because it’s easier to work with weak, dependent regimes than with confident, self-directed states.
The South Caucasus is no longer playing the pawn. And for that, it’s being punished.
But this time, the rules of the game have changed—and not in the West’s favor.