Day: January 5, 2026

NPR’s A Martinez talks to Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center about the Zaporizhzhia power plant and its importance in the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

A significant shift in the Eurasian energy landscape is gaining momentum as Azerbaijan and Türkiye deepen their cooperation on natural gas supply, anchored by the burgeoning potential of the Absheron gas field in the Caspian Sea. Long reliant on Russian and Iranian imports, Ankara is strategically diversifying its energy basket, and Baku is poised to become an increasingly central supplier and partner in the region’s evolving energy architecture.

Russian forces launched a massive strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on January 5, causing widespread power outages in several regions, especially in frontline and border areas.

Author: Gigi Kobakhidze

“If there is something moving backward in today’s world, it is the European Union – thanks to European bureaucracy,” Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said in a televised interview with Public Broadcaster on December 16, adding that the decline within the EU is “across the board – whether in the economy, democracy, human rights or press freedom.” 

Kobakhidze would echo and elaborate on the argument in a series of interviews given to pro-government TV channels before the New Year. The GD prime minister repeatedly spoke about what he described as “grave tendencies” facing the EU, including economic decline, the erosion of welfare, and the loss of identity, blaming unknown “informal forces” for steering the bloc in this direction.

The Georgian Dream’s narrative about the EU’s decline is not new, but has been more proactively articulated amid the historic low in EU-Georgia relations, concerns over Georgia possibly losing visa-free travel with the EU, and the continued failure of the Georgian Dream to reset relations with the West despite declared efforts. 

‘EU Getting Weaker Day by Day’

Kobakhidze has since elaborated on what he calls the EU’s “grave tendencies,” repeatedly returning to economic arguments to support his broader narrative of decline. In the interviews, he pointed to what he described as the bloc’s shrinking economic weight, while repeatedly citing the new U.S. National Security Strategy.

“The European Union is getting weaker day by day, year by year,” Kobakhidze told Public Broadcaster on December 16, arguing that the EU’s share of the global economy has fallen from about 30% in 2008 to 17.5% today and will continue to decline. “Year by year, the EU is experiencing economic backsliding,” he added.

He linked what he described as “severe economic damage” to geopolitical developments since 2008, arguing that the EU has become the “main victim” among major global players in recent wars, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. According to Kobakhidze, the bloc’s economic losses began as relations between the EU and Russia, in his words, “gradually drifted apart.”

“As a result, the European Union has gradually lost access to the Russian market, which was very important for the bloc and for the development of Europe’s economy as a whole,” he said, adding that EU countries also lost access to cheap Russian natural resources.

Kobakhidze blamed what he described as “informal forces” for steering the EU into becoming a “victim” of others’ wars. While he did not specify whom he meant by “informal forces,” Georgian Dream leaders and propagandists have repeatedly claimed that the West – including the EU, U.S., and the UK – is under the influence of a “deep state,” a conspiracy narrative pointing to informal or even oligarchic rule.

Loss of Welfare and Identity

Beyond economics, Kobakhidze has also argued that the EU has lost both its welfare model and its identity. In a December 22 interview with pro-government Rustavi 2, he said Europe once stood out globally – alongside major actors such as the United States and China – for combining a high level of welfare with a strong sense of identity, something he claimed neither Washington nor Beijing had achieved simultaneously.

According to Kobakhidze, the United States had welfare without strong identity, while China had identity without high welfare, whereas the EU once had both – but “over these years, especially since 2008, rapidly lost them.”

“We have grave tendencies when it comes to welfare,” he said, noting that the issue has also been raised by the U.S. administration. “And in terms of identity, this affects all types of identity – ethnic, religious, and personal. In all directions, there is decline.”

• 13/07/2025 – GD Brushes Aside European Criticism, Saying EU, UK Are Ruled by ‘Deep State’

Kobakhidze has repeatedly framed this loss of identity as the result of a widening gap between European societies and what he calls the “European bureaucracy.” While arguing that Georgian society is inherently pro-European and rooted in Christian values – which he says underpin democracy and human rights – he accused European bureaucrats of abandoning those same values.

According to him, Europeanness and respect for European values are embedded in Georgians’ “identity and genes,” but are absent from the European bureaucracy, which he claims shows no regard for traditional Christian values or the legal and state values derived from them.

At the same time, Kobakhidze has sought to draw a clear distinction between criticism of European institutions and Georgia’s stated foreign policy course.

“Eurointegration and the European Union are one thing. Euro-bureaucracy is another,” he said, stressing that Georgia’s goal remains EU membership. He added that this aspiration is based on what he described as optimism that the negative trends he sees within the bloc will eventually reverse.

He also dismissed as “mere speculation” suggestions that the government plans to amend the Constitution to abandon Euro-Atlantic integration, stressing that such changes are technically impossible because Georgian Dream does not hold a constitutional majority in parliament.

Reset with Georgia in EU’s Interest

Portraying the EU’s decline, Kobakhidze then cast his arguments as a prescription for Brussels to reset relations with Georgia.

“A reset of relations would, in reality, be the most pragmatic step from the European bureaucracy,” Kobakhidze said in a December 25 interview with pro-government Imedi TV, arguing that it is “objectively” not in the European Union’s interest to maintain its current approach toward Georgia, especially against the backdrop of economic difficulties triggered by the war in Ukraine.

According to Kobakhidze, the EU’s challenges have been compounded by the loss of access to cheap Russian natural resources and the Russian market, making it necessary, in his view, for Brussels to seek alternative routes and partnerships to the east. In this context, he said Georgia represents the only effective corridor – via the Black Sea and onward to neighboring countries and Central Asia – and therefore it is in the EU’s interest to develop this direction and restore what he described as “healthy relations” with Tbilisi.

With no visible sign of such a reset, however, Kobakhidze said he sees no explanation for Brussels’ actions other than the influence of what he calls the “European bureaucracy,” which, he says, is unable to act in line with the objective interests of either the EU or European society.

“There can be no other justification or explanation for such an attitude,” he said.

2026 ‘Very Difficult’ for EU

Kobakhidze has echoed these points in other interviews, arguing that similar arguments are reflected in the new U.S. National Security Strategy document.

“The main problem for the EU is that the majority of the member states of the EU specifically and the European bureaucracy have fully lost sovereignty,” Kobakhidze told Rustavi 2. “Under such conditions, they struggle to act in accordance with their objective interests, with the objective interests of the EU, and this is expressed in many things, and the American [national] security document is speaking about all of this.”

Speaking at length in a series of interviews about what he described as “grave tendencies” in Europe, Kobakhidze ultimately offered a bleak outlook, particularly for the EU itself.

“Unfortunately, judging very generally from what we see, the coming year will be very difficult – even more difficult – for the European Union, including from an economic standpoint and also political standpoint,” he told Imedi.

Also Read:

• 30/12/2025 – Contesting West, Aligning with Rest: Georgian Dream’s Foreign Policy in 2025 and Beyond
• 19/12/2025 – Georgia Could Lose Visa Free ‘Entirely’, EU Commission’s Visa Report Warns
• 17/12/2025 – EU Countries: Georgia’s Accession Process Has ‘Effectively Come to Standstill’

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