Georgian Prime Minister Claims "Horrific Threat" From EU Commissioner Referencing Assassination Attempt on Fico

Concerning revelations from the Georgian Prime Minister

Is Georgia the next Ukraine? In the map above it is a small country on the East coast of the Black Sea. To the North it borders Russia and to the South Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In recent days, Georgia has seen hundreds of thousands of protestors in its capital Tbilisi, due to a proposed “foreign agents” law. The new law is designed to ensure there is transparency when an organisation or media company receives more than 20% of its revenue from abroad. If the company or organisation does breach this threshold then it has to register as “organisations serving the interests of foreign power”.

It sounds like a sensible law to me but what do I know. Obviously the debate is far more nuanced than I can summarise in a few sentences but the pro EU protestors think Russia has had some influence on the legislation and so it will be used to crack down on anyone who wants Georgia to join the EU. In fact, the EU itself has said that the new law will make it difficult for Georgia to join the bloc.

This looks like a repeat of Ukraine - a battle between the West and Russia as to who can control this tiny country. Georgia had been pursing a more pro-Western foreign policy since its ‘Rose’ revolution in 2003 but this led to the Russo-Georgian War of 2008.

The current President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, was actually born in France and joined the French diplomatic service before accepting Georgian nationality in 2004. You can guess where her allegiances lie.

Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, on the other hand, was born in Tbilisi and is seen to be “anti-European” and “anti-American”.

Earlier in May, Kobakhidze made a statement alleging that the US had supported two attempted colour revolutions in his country.

Spoke to [US Counselor of the Department of Sate, Derek Chollet] and expressed my sincere disappointment with the two revolution attempts of 2020-2023 supported by the former US Ambassador and those carried out through NGOs financed from external sources. Had these attempts been successful, the second front line would have been opened in Georgia.

Besides, I explained to Mr. Chollet that false statements made by the officials of the US State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former US Ambassador in 2020-2023, which served to the facilitation of violence from foreign funded actors and to the support of revolutionary processes back then.

Also, I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach.

I have not expressed my concerns with Mr. Chollet about a brutal crackdown of the students' protest rally in New York City.

If correct, you can understand why they want companies financed by foreign money to be more transparent.

Even more concerning, today, the Prime Minister alleged that an EU Commissioner tried to blackmail him over the adoption of the new law.

It was claimed that the European Commissioner had “listed a number of measures, which Western politicians could take if the presidential veto on the transparency law is overridden,” Kobakhidze wrote on social media.

In what Kobakhidze called a “horrific threat,” the EU official in question had referenced a recent assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and told him to “be very careful.”

…

“The parallel drawn with the attempt to kill Robert Fico reminds us that in the form of a global war party, we are dealing with an extremely dangerous force that will do anything to bring chaos to Georgia,” he added.

According to the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party narrative, there is a ‘Global war party’, which for them refers to forces working to involve Georgia in Ukraine’s war with Russia and to open a ‘second front’ on Georgian territory.

Whilst the PM did not name names, it has since been revealed that the man in question was EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi. Varhelyi said his words had been “not just fully taken out of context but was also presented to the public in a way which could give rise to a complete misinterpretation of the originally intended aim of my phone call.”

He reiterated the EU’s call for the foreign agent bill to be dropped, and said he had been trying to warn Kobakhidze “not to enflame further the already fragile situation by adopting this law which could lead to further polarisation and to possible uncontrolled situations on the streets of Tbilisi.”

Another US proxy war in the making?