With EU bid stuck, Georgia prays for Euro 2024 victory instead

Georgia’s leaders don’t want anyone to be able to say they’ve taken their eyes off the ball.

Accused of failing to fulfill the requirements to join the EU, and amid widespread protests over what critics say amounts to a pivot towards Russia, the governing Georgian Dream party is hoping football success can bring together the bitterly divided South Caucasus country.

EU leaders on Friday warned that Georgia’s current trajectory is “de facto leading to a halt of the accession process,” just six months after it was granted candidacy. In a statement issued after a European Council summit, the leaders called on the government in Tbilisi to reverse course.

Georgian Dream in May forced a controversial new law through the parliament that will force Western-backed NGOs to register as “foreign agents,” echoing rules used by Moscow to persecute dissenting voices. The government is now forging ahead with legislation that would sharply curtail LGBTQ+ rights and ban all mention of the community from popular culture, even requiring cinemas to censor same-sex references from films.

However, with national elections looming in October and opposition parties uniting in a bid to close the gap in the polls, Georgian Dream is looking for a different kind of success in Europe. Last Wednesday, the country’s football team pulled off a surprise victory over Portugal in the Euro 2024 competition, landing themselves a spot in the knockout stages of the tournament.

It’s a feel-good story that the embattled ruling party clearly wants to be associated with. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the elusive oligarch and former prime minister who oversees Georgian Dream, has already handed close to €10 million to the players as a cash reward for their performance — and promised to double it if they win their round of 16 challenge on Sunday against Spain.

The government is also subsidizing flights to the match in Cologne, offering more than 200 fans discounted plane tickets.

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the leader of Georgian Dream in parliament, has even accused the opposition of failing to sufficiently celebrate the team’s success — and instead conspiring with Western leaders to “isolate Georgia from the international community.”

On Friday, a joint statement organized by Lithuania and signed by 36 countries was presented at a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, accusing Georgian security forces of violence against peaceful protesters and urging the cancellation of the foreign agent law, which it said would have a “chilling effect” on media outlets and NGOs. Georgian Dream says the measures are necessary to protect its sovereignty, and insists the rules are compatible with joining the EU.

However, according to Tina Akhvlediani, a research fellow in the EU Foreign Policy Unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies, while the vast majority of Georgians want to join the EU, Brussels’ response to Tbilisi’s moves has been too slow and too cautious to pose a threat to Georgian Dream ahead of October’s elections.

“Freezing Georgia’s EU integration is already happening, but it is gradual, it is not drastic, so this will not create a crisis for them,” she said. “They will still try to win the elections with the rhetoric that Georgia is still on the European path, even while sabotaging this through their actions.”

Despite that, Georgia’s footballers are themselves increasingly divided. In April, the captain of the national team, Jaba Kankava, posted a message in support of those protesting the foreign agent bill. He was later dropped from the squad, although other players who backed the demonstrators secured spots — including winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who scored the opening goal in the upset against Portugal.