On 16 September, the European Commissioner for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová and the European Commissioner in charge of Internal Market Thierry Breton have introduced the European Commission’s proposal on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) . The new proposal, if adopted, will significantly reduce…

Top officials from the ruling “Georgian Dream” party have recently stepped up the campaign of accusations against Georgia’s leading civil society organizations. Civil.ge asked the executives of several of those CSOs to comment. We spoke to Nika Simonishvili, who is serving as the Chairperson of the Georgian…

Top officials from the ruling “Georgian Dream” party have recently stepped up the campaign of accusations against Georgia’s leading civil society organizations. Civil.ge asked the executives of several of those CSOs, that were directly targeted by the attacks, for their comments. We spoke to Eka…

Civil.ge asked Judy Dempsey, a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of Strategic Europe, about the implications of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2022 State of the Union Speech both for the Eastern Partnership region and the world at…

On the eve of her visit to Georgia, Odile Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), granted this interview to Civil.ge, discussing the key efforts of the Bank to support Georgia’s development. Your annual report says EBRD has invested €4.3 billion…

On 18 August, the ruling Georgian Dream party decided not to invite one of Georgia’s most influential civil society organizations working on election issues, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), to the first meeting of the electoral reforms working group created to…

Ambassador Szczygieł, we are speaking today as Russia continues its full-scale attack on Ukraine for more than two months, which has brought seismic shifts to the entire region. In light of this war, what is the security environment on the ground across both Abkhazia and…

The rapidity and zeal with which the Georgian Dream leaders and pundits rushed to the defense of their patron, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s private assets and riches, show that Georgia is not that much Ivanishvili’s political project, but his collateral in the international game – both an…

The Georgian Dream government has attracted widespread criticism for what many — both at home and abroad — regarded as their half-hearted stance during Russian aggression against Ukraine. Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s clear-cut rejection of joining international sanctions against Russia and alleged obstruction of a…

More than thirty years have passed since the armed conflicts swept the South Caucasus. Amid the dramatic breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, dozens of ethno-political conflicts emerged in the former Soviet states. The nations living in the South Caucasus — once seen as…

As the United States engages the Russian Federation concerning the Kremlin’s ultimatum aiming to change the configuration of European security, Georgia is among the countries whose fate is being decided. The process is likely to be drawn out, with the possibility of escalations that may…

The mood was solemn on 30 July at a dilapidated house in central Tbilisi, as speaker after speaker from Soviet…

Nini Gabritchidze was the author of The Dispatch. She is now a freelance journalist. Lately, Georgians have been rushing to…

Redjeb Jordania died on July 15, 2021, almost 100 years after his birth in the French town of Vanves in…

On Wednesday, November 13, together with his colleagues, Civil.ge’s Otar Kobakhidze joined the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) patrols to…

We do live in momentous times. And perhaps as always in such times, the sense of normal, everyday logic is the first casualty. Georgia has been living behind the looking glass for a while now,…

Since we have last spoken, the reginal conflagration has been drawing ever closer, with Georgia’s two next-door neighbors coming to blows, again. Yet, no matter that the Pax (well, cynically speaking) Russica has been unravelling…

As the world marvels at Ukraine’s military success, mourns the passing of the British monarch, and looks with disquiet at yet another flareup of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia’s internal politics remains insular and…

The summer break is now firmly behind us, and as Tbilisi braces to the end of the scorching summer heat, The Dispatch is back online. So is the political circus, with the opposition calling for…

In Georgia, another week has passed. As the international order is consumed in the flames of Russia’s atrocious aggression in Ukraine, and as Europe burns in the throes of the climate change whose catastrophic effects…

Apparently summer is the time, when Georgian politicians sharpen their quills and go on to write long, winding letters full of intrigue and surreptitious adulation. Much like the protagonists of the legendary novel of Pierre…

Author: Ted Jonas is an international lawyer and environmental activist who has lived in Georgia for many years. Georgia is having a Yanukovich moment. That time when the government of Ukraine in 2013-2014 got orders from Moscow to drop the EU association process. The government…

Irakli Sirbiladze is a Foreign Affairs analyst, holding an MA degree in International Relations from Queen Mary University of London. His wider research interests include International Relations Theory, Georgian Foreign Policy and Russian Foreign Policy. As Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – three Associated Trio nations…

Hans Gutbrod is a long-time analyst of Georgia and the Caucasus. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He is on Twitter at @HansGutbrod. With the jailing of Nika Gvaramia, we should bury once and for all the term…

Largely ignored in the discussion of Russia’s strategy in its war on Ukraine is the story of what may have been the first successful conquest of a foreign country by the Soviet Union.  Vladimir Putin, who is obsessed with history, is certainly familiar with this…

Author: Giorgi Kanashvili, peace and conflict specialist I have been part of Georgian-Abkhaz dialogue for fifteen years now. One of the topics the Abkhaz constantly raise is about Tbilisi isolating Abkhazia from the West, and pushing them to look for alternatives. In this region, one…

By Peter Wiebler, USAID/Georgia Mission Director Last year’s local elections were held under difficult circumstances, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic and a tense environment before and during election day. Despite these factors, voter turnout was 52%, significantly higher than in the previous local elections. This…

Author: Rosaria Puglisi, the Head of the NATO Liaison Office in Georgia It’s time to pack my bags and say my good-byes. After four memorable years, my term as the Head of the NATO Liaison Office (NLO) in Georgia is coming to an end. During…

By Jelger Groeneveld, Dutch D66 party, Board Member International Cooperation Division Friday would have marked the 50th day of Mikheil Saakashvili’s hunger strike in state captivity, amidst mounting concerns of his health condition and refusal of government authorities to transfer the former president to a…

Laura Thornton is director and senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. Previously, she was director of global programs at International IDEA, a Stockholm-based intergovernmental think-tank with the mission to advance democracy. She has also led the National Democratic…

Zaal Andronikashvili, Ilia State University/Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research. This article first appeared (in Georgian) on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Georgian service page. It has been insignificantly adapted by Civil.ge for an English-language audience. “Sack me, if you can!” gloated Vice Premier…

Levan Tsutskiridze is Executive Director of the Eastern European Center for Multi-party Democracy (EECMD) Georgia has witnessed unbelievable violence during the first week of July. The homophobic mob, egged on by the religious extremists that are entrenched in the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchy and encouraged by…

by Regis Gente As the airplane of the European Council President Charles Michel touched down in Batumi, it was hard to shake off the feeling of déjà vu. Once again, the top European official visits Georgia immersed in a tense, almost intractable political crisis. Charles…

In Georgia, 2021 was a tumultuous year of continued and new crises, but also a year of attempted solutions, many…

2019 has been a year of political and security tribulations. No tangible progress has been reached on occupied territories as…

To say that 2020 was an eventful year is an understatement. Like every other nation on the planet, Georgia has…