In the space of just two weeks, two landmark votes have taken place in the EU’s direct neighbourhood, and in both cases the results have shown just how vulnerable the region is. In the recent Moldovan referendum on membership of the EU, and the Georgian general election, pro-European voices from inside the European Union were missing, whilst Russia has managed to subvert the will of the people.
Indeed, whilst Russia has been busy supporting its allies in the South Caucasus, the Western Balkans, and the Middle East – the European Union and other Western Allies have seemingly vanished. Beyond perfunctory press releases and statements ‘expressing deep concern’, there has been little in the way of tangible support. Even the United States, now distracted by a tight election of its own, has taken the basic step of introducing sanctions.
A recent example of this failure of EU policy in the neighbourhood can be seen in the conduct of a recent referendum on Moldova’s Euro-Atlantic integration.
Whilst many EU officials, including the Presidents of the Commission and Parliament, have sent nice messages congratulating the Moldovan government on their victory in the referendum, no one seems to have addressed the elephant in the room – that the referendum was very nearly lost. The final result of 50.3% in favour of the EU and 49.6% against is hardly a vote of confidence. This is perhaps made worse by the fact that a poll in April – six months before the referendum – found that more than 60% of the public supported EU integration.
This collapse in public support for joining the EU is far from organic. By all accounts Moldova is the perfect candidate country to join the European Union as it stands to benefit enormously from outside investment and development support. Instead, we have seen Russia spend millions of dollars on a campaign against the EU and NATO. One claim by Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Cristina Gerasimova, is that Russia spent as much as $100 million on vote buying and disinformation in what was described as a ‘grey zone attack’ on the country.
The EU by contrast seemingly spent little on supporting the campaign in favour of membership. Despite the fact that there was a clear and obvious case to be made. Equally, no EU officials travelled to the country during the campaign to support a vote for joining.
The events surrounding the recent referendum are only the latest in a long string of attempts to undermine the Moldovan government and their ambition to join the Euro-Atlantic West. Only a year before, it was alleged that Russia had run another campaign to try and destabilise the country through mass protests against the government – including bringing in demonstrators from outside the country. At the same time it was claimed that as much as $55 million was spent on vote buying during the 2023 local elections in the country.
As with Ukraine and Georgia, there is a large Russian minority within Moldova that the Russian government manipulates – both through control of the Russian language media, and by promoting an atmosphere of divide and rule.
Georgia’s recent elections serve as a second warning of Western complacency towards the EU’s direct neighbourhood. For months, civil society groups and Georgian Opposition Parties warned that Russia was meddling with the elections. Only six months before, the ruling pro-Russian Georgian Dream Party tried to force through laws that would have clamped down on the ability for civil society organisations to work in the country, mirroring a law passed in Russia in 2012.
The warning signs were there, and yet the elections were stolen anyway. Double ballots were issued, ethnic minorities allegedly given the right to vote at multiple polling stations, elections observers were attacked, and voters were intimidated. Meanwhile there were clear signs of Russian campaign tactics being deployed by the Georgian Dream Party, including a shot for shot remake of a pro-Kremlin advert from 2018. And in the days before the elections, police were sent to raid the private homes of senior staff working for the Atlantic Council.
That such a brazen attempt to steal a democratic election could take place in Europe, in the EU’s own backyard, demonstrates just how much of a failure its policy towards the region has been. Yet friends of Russia have shown that they have the upper hand.
Indeed, whilst many inside the EU have criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for congratulating the Georgian Dream Party on winning the election long before the results were declared, and even more have condemned him from flying to Tbilisi the day after the election. And yet, not one leader from the EU thought to fly to Georgia in the run up to the election, no EU Commissioners or MEPs hopped on a flight to the country after the results were declared to stand in solidarity with the opposition. It is all well and good criticising Orban for his actions, but what is more important is for those who defend the normative power of the European Union to show up themselves.
Contrast this with the long line of leaders who flew to Kyiv at the time of the Revolution of Dignity – US Senator John McCain, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, and many others from across EU and NATO Member States. There was a genuine sense that the West cared about Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic future, whilst in Georgia it seems to be carelessly drifting away with no regard for the will of the people.
Indeed, at times it feels as though Georgia has completely fallen off the radar when it comes to Western policy. Contrast the lack of attention that the country has received in the last few years with the flurry of support that it received in the aftermath of the 2008 invasion by Russia. The Polish Law and Justice leader Lech Kaczyński gave perhaps his most important foreign policy speech on the steps of the Georgian Parliament – warning about the rise of a revanchist Russia. The US poured vast amounts into supporting the countries development.
And yet in recent years the country has been mostly ignored – left in the hands of technocrats who are too afraid to change their policy towards the country as it would inconvenience them too much. As a result, millions of taxpayer euros have been used by a pro-Russian government to push an anti-European narrative and agenda.
When MEPs from Central and Eastern Europe, or even opposition figures from within the country, dared to criticise the policy, staff at the European Commission simply waved them away. And now, as a result of this policy failure, we sit having to face the consequences of a stolen election.
To assume that what happened in Moldova and Georgia are outliers would again be naïve. The fact is that the EU has equally failed to stand up for its values, and the promotion of liberal democratic values, in the rest of its neighbourhood as well. For as optimistic as the prospects of membership might be amongst countries in the Western Balkans, there remains an uphill struggle against Russia, China, and other malign powers.
One need only look at the democratic backsliding taking place in Serbia under the Vucic government, with the free press and civil society groups under mounting pressure. Or at the creeping authoritarianism in parts of Bosnia Herzegovina – in particular the Serb majority Republic of Srpska – where similar laws as those passed in Russia and now Georgia are being forced through.
For the worst-case example, the failure of EU policy towards Belarus has seen the Lukashenko regime cement its grip on power and send the opposition into exile. It is well and good giving that opposition a platform in Brussels or awarding them the Sakharov Prize in the European Parliament, but it would have been better to have European politicians standing shoulder to shoulder with demonstrators who took to the streets of Minsk in 2019.
The risk of the EU losing control of its neighbourhood is disastrous, not just as a morale blow to the authority of the West, but also in real terms. Already in recent years, we have seen as Belarus has been used as a conduit for the weaponization of migrants – with so called ‘refugees’ imported from the middle east and pushed across the border into Poland and the Baltic States. In the Western Balkans, China has made new allies by offering cheap loans and large infrastructure projects in the absence of EU support.
As the world enters a new period of geopolitical flux, with the return of great power rivalry, the West needs to become much more serious about defending its values, and supporting the people who share them. The European Union has incredible resources at its disposal, from development funds to free trade agreements, from educational exchange programmes to investment agreements, it should use them in conjunction with its allies to secure its own periphery first.
