EU's 'shameful' silence at Georgia's defiance speaks volumes about VDL's plan for enlargement - analysis by Millie Cooke
The EU has long been open about its plans for enlargement, with a number of countries on the list for potential membership
New legislation passed in Georgia comes despite warnings that it would undermine the country's path to join the bloc
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The EU has long been open about its plans for enlargement, with a number of countries on the list for potential membership.
In September last year, European Council President Charles Michel announced that the block is aiming to grant membership to its candidate countries by 2030.
Giving her State of the European Union (SOTEU) address in Brussels, Ursula Von der Leyen said: "History is now calling us to work on completing our union".
There are currently nine recognised candidates for membership: Turkey, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But the bloc has been notably quiet about one of those candidate countries, despite recent developments that should be concerning to the EU.
Georgia applied for membership in March 2022 and was established as a candidate country.
But this week, the country's parliament passed the controversial foreign agents law. The bill, which has been condemned as a Kremlin-inspired act of repression, was backed by 84 MPs to 30.
The legislation means that media or civil society groups that receive more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad will have to register as "organisations serving the interests of a foreign power".
Its passing comes despite massive protests rocking the country, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets of Tbilisi.
And significantly, it comes despite EU warnings that it would undermine the country's path to join the bloc.
The US has condemned the new law as "Kremlin-inspired".
While Germany's Annalena Baerbock took to social media to condemn the law as being "counter to Europe's values".
But in the hours since the legislation was passed, there has been radio silence from EU chiefs.
Hitting out at the deafening silence, one EU diplomat told Politico: "It’s absolutely shameful that by now the U.S. has put out a strong statement about Georgia complying with EU accession criteria and we can’t manage to put out a single word."
While the EU's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell is said to have prepared a strong statement, it has apparently been repeatedly delayed.
The reasons behind the EU's hesitation to weigh in on this are not yet clear. But perhaps it speaks to the emphasis the bloc has put on its mission to expand.
