November 12, 2025
By Eurasianet
(Eurasianet) — In a sign that Georgia has completed its authoritarian makeover, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has added the ruling Georgian Dream party’s founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, to its list of global “press freedom predators,” citing his decisive influence over national politics and media outlets.
“[Ivanishvili] continues to be the center around which power gravitates in Georgia despite his official withdrawal from political life. His business empire guarantees him decisive influence,” RSF writes, placing him among figures who “ruin media financially.”
He joins a list of 34 press freedom predators worldwide, including Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and US tech titan Elon Musk.
The designation comes at the same time the European Union Commission released its annual enlargement assessment, in which Georgia is described as “a candidate country in name only.” Out of the 10 countries covered, Georgia received the most severe criticism; Serbia lagged far behind in the criticism department.
The Commission noted that the situation in Georgia has “significantly further deteriorated” since December of last year, when Tbilisi decided to suspend its accession process until 2028, a decision party leaders announced after disputed parliamentary elections, blaming the EU for “blackmailing.”
“In Georgia, the adopted and enforced restrictive laws targeting activists, civil society and independent media threaten the survival of democratic foundations and are unprecedented among candidate countries,” the assessment stated.
Asked about potential action, EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said that later in November the Commission “will hopefully get the new visa-suspension mechanism, which will enable us to take some further steps”.
The EU has long threatened to suspend visa-free travel privileges for Georgians if Georgian Dream didn’t take fast action to reverse course. Despite the Georgian government’s outright rejection of an EU ultimatum, Brussels continues to hesitate on following through on its threat. The suspension of visa-free travel could spark mass protests against Georgian Dream, given that a sizable majority of the population supports EU accession.
In response to the EU assessment, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze repeated the government’s longstanding narrative that the problem lies not with Georgia, but rather with the EU. “We want to become a member of the European Union by 2030, and I hope that by then the situation in the EU will have changed significantly,” Kobakhidze said. “Today, the behavior of the European bureaucracy has fallen to almost Soviet standards.”
The report’s release coincided with Kobakhidze’s visit to China. Speaking to TRT World, he said: “We share common values, that’s why it is particularly valuable for us to deepen cooperation with China.”
Amid Georgia’s descent into authoritarianism, the EU is finding a new favorite in the South Caucasus. The day after the enlargement report’s publication, the EU handed Armenia a Visa Liberalization Action Plan.
Meanwhile, the domestic crackdown in Georgia is ongoing. Prosecutors announced on November 6 a fresh batch of criminal charges against eight of the country’s most prominent opposition figures, six of whom are already behind bars.
Those facing new prosecutions for supposed “crimes against the state” include former president Mikheil Saakashvili, Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Gvaramia, Nika Melia, Zurab Japaridze, Elene Khoshtaria, Mamuka Khazaradze, and Badri Japaridze. The government is prosecuting those who worked with international partners over the past year, paving the way for the imposition of Western sanctions on government officials, observers in Brussels believe.
The announcement came one week after Georgian Dream asked the country’s rubber-stamp Constitutional Court to ban three of the country’s major opposition parties, citing a lengthy report from the disputed parliament’s investigative commission, set up by GD to rewrite the country’s post-Soviet history and justify its crackdown.
Eurasianet
Originally published at Eurasianet. Eurasianet is an independent news organization that covers news from and about the South Caucasus and Central Asia, providing on-the-ground reporting and critical perspectives on the most important developments in the region. A tax-exempt [501(c)3] organization, Eurasianet is based at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, one of the leading centers in North America of scholarship on Eurasia. Read more at eurasianet.org
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