Georgia’s FM Calls PACE Resolution a ‘Political Tool’ on Tbilisi

Maka Bochorishvili, Georgia’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, has dismissed a draft PACE resolution on democratic backsliding as “another attempt to use international organizations and institutions for political purposes.” Her comments came as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Monitoring Committee prepared the text for a vote in the assembly’s June session, a document that concludes the conditions for “genuinely democratic elections” currently do not exist in Georgia.

The draft lands in Tbilisi three months after a separate OSCE Moscow Mechanism report on Georgia was published. The Georgian Dream delegation at PACE has been in a suspended state since the 2025 winter session, when the assembly conditionally ratified the credentials of the Georgian delegation on the understanding that new elections would be set and “all political prisoners” released.

What Bochorishvili Said

Bochorishvili framed the draft as a coordinated push against Tbilisi in remarks to journalists. She called it “another attempt to use international organizations and institutions for political purposes” and said critics were working to ensure that narratives “regarding Georgia, which have already been reflected in a number of resolutions, are repeated as widely as possible across different institutions and adopted in various forms,” according to Georgia Today.

The minister named three bodies she said were involved: the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. The first two, she said, “we constantly see” repeating critical assessments of Georgia. The third, she said, was “used… through the launch of the Moscow Mechanism regarding Georgia.” Bochorishvili added that the Georgian government raises the issue “with our partners” and considers the practice “completely unacceptable” because it “undermines” trust in international institutions.

What the Draft Resolution Actually Says

The text was prepared by the Monitoring Committee and is based on a report by co-rapporteurs Edite Estrela of Portugal and Sabina Ćudić of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The committee approved it on 21 May 2026, according to the Monitoring Committee’s press release on the draft.

The continuing breakdown of democracy in Georgia and the lack of any response to the recommendations of the Assembly to address this, raise serious doubts about the authorities’ willingness to abide by Georgia’s membership obligations and accession commitments to the Council of Europe.

In its central language, the Monitoring Committee’s draft expresses “serious concerns” about a “democratic breakdown and deep political and social crisis” in Georgia. It regrets that the backsliding has continued “unabated” alongside what it calls a “crackdown on civil society, political opposition and dissent.” And the draft records that none of the assembly’s previous “urgent recommendations” have been addressed by the Georgian authorities.

On specific cases, the text goes further. It describes as “unacceptable” the prosecution of opposition politicians on what it calls “politically motivated” and “trumped-up charges,” and it names two jailed figures: Ahali party co-founder Nika Melia and Droa party leader Elene Khoshtaria. The draft also reiterates that banning opposition parties in Georgia would “effectively establish a one-party dictatorship in Georgia, which violates essential democratic principles and is incompatible with Council of Europe membership.” On elections, the document states explicitly that the conditions for genuinely democratic elections currently do not exist in Georgia and calls on authorities to “initiate as a priority an open and inclusive political process involving all political forces and civil stakeholders.”

The full Assembly is expected to take the text up during its June session, the same period when the body’s credentials process for the Georgian delegation remains conditionally unresolved. The draft also records that “politically motivated prosecutions with no other objective than to silence dissenting voices raise the spectre of the existence of political prisoners” in Georgia.

The Moscow Mechanism Report That Got Here First

The PACE draft draws explicitly on a separate assessment by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, whose Moscow Mechanism report on Georgia was published in March 2026. Twenty-three OSCE participating states, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Ukraine, and the Baltic and Nordic countries, had invoked the mechanism on 29 January 2026 to “assess Georgia’s implementation of its OSCE commitments, with a particular focus on developments since spring 2024.” It was the first time the Moscow Mechanism had been used in connection with Georgia. The mechanism allows a group of participating states to send a mission of independent experts to assess a country’s human dimension commitments and report back to the OSCE.

In the period covered by the mandate, a marked democratic backsliding has taken place in Georgia.

The sole rapporteur, Professor Patrycja Grzebyk, found a pattern of “violence and other abuses against protesters, political opponents and journalists” alongside “almost complete impunity of perpetrators.” Her report concluded that, in some cases, the treatment of detainees “has arguably reached the threshold of torture.”

On legislation, the rapporteur found that laws targeting “foreign influence” and amendments affecting the media, assemblies, and political participation “have unduly limited freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and have had a chilling effect on civil society and independent media.” On opposition, the report warned that “the ongoing attempt to ban the main opposition parties threatens the existence of political pluralism.” The PACE draft, drafted by Estrela and Ćudić, says the assembly “fully shares” those findings and urges Tbilisi to fully implement the recommendations, which the 23 invoking states and Poland outlined in a joint statement on the rapporteur’s report in March 2026. An Amnesty International 500-day account of the crackdown has independently documented the same pattern of arrests and impunity.

Why Tbilisi Reads It as a Political Tool

The Georgian government has framed the international criticism as a coordinated campaign, a line it has run since the OSCE move in January. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called the Moscow Mechanism’s invocation “a continuation” of “an unfair campaign… waged against Georgia and the Georgian people” and said the OSCE move “does not interest us,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. Speaker of parliament Shalva Papuashvili told reporters “let them activate whatever mechanism they want… when have we ever been afraid of some inspector?” Both lines came in the days after the 29 January 2026 OSCE move; the PACE draft lands four months later and has drawn the same framing.

Bochorishvili’s framing is the sharper version of that line. She leans on three specific institutional forums to make the case: the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. Within the OSCE she singles out the Moscow Mechanism. “We have seen this in different institutions. We constantly see it in the European Parliament, we see it in the Council of Europe, and there was also an attempt to use it within the OSCE through the launch of the Moscow Mechanism regarding Georgia,” she said. The argument rests on repetition: the same critical conclusions keep being recycled across bodies, which she reads as evidence of a political project. “Narratives regarding Georgia, which have already been reflected in a number of resolutions, are repeated as widely as possible across different institutions and adopted in various forms,” she said.

A Pattern of Resolutions and Conditional Credentials

The PACE draft is the latest in a series of critical texts from European institutions, not the first to land on Tbilisi. The table below traces the main moves through OSCE and PACE channels since late 2024.

In parallel, the credentials of the Georgian delegation at PACE remain in a conditional state. PACE conditionally ratified those credentials during the 2025 winter session, on the understanding that new parliamentary elections would be set and “all political prisoners” released.

The Georgian Dream delegation suspended its participation in the assembly after the 2025 winter session. PACE Resolution 2585 (2025), adopted that session, set out the conditional terms on substantive grounds. The arrangement bought time on both sides, and a separate Council of Europe track on Georgia’s protest laws is running in parallel. The June vote on the new draft will now sit on top of the credentials arrangement.

What the Resolution Would Demand

The June draft lists a set of concrete steps for the Georgian authorities. It frames them as responses to backsliding that has gone unaddressed, with the assembly’s prior recommendations ignored. The PACE document calls on Tbilisi to “fully repeal” the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, withdraw the Constitutional Court application aimed at banning opposition parties, and release “all persons detained for political reasons.” The text also names two opposition figures by name: Ahali party co-founder Nika Melia and Droa party leader Elene Khoshtaria.

• Repeal the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and amendments to the Law on Grants
• Withdraw the application in the Constitutional Court aimed at banning opposition parties
• Release “all persons detained for political reasons,” including Nika Melia and Elene Khoshtaria
• Conduct “credible, independent and effective investigations” into police brutality and the use of prohibited chemical agents during the dispersal of protests in late 2024
• Establish a transparent and independent mechanism to govern the privatization of university assets made surplus by the “One City, One Faculty” reform
• Refrain from arbitrary detention and prosecution of political opponents, journalists, and other participants in public debate
• Reestablish cooperation with the OSCE’s ODIHR and the Venice Commission

The PACE draft also invites “all Council of Europe member States to consider the use of interstate applications to the ECtHR under Article 33 of the Convention, to ensure that Georgia fully honour all the standards and obligations stemming from Council of Europe membership.” It regrets that “no use to date has been made of these mechanisms offered by the ECHR.” The text also calls on the relevant Council of Europe bodies to use “all available means,” including those under Article 52 of the ECHR, to ensure execution of European Court of Human Rights judgments. It closes by recalling that “membership of the Council of Europe is a privilege that comes with rights and obligations,” and that the principles and standards of the Organization, as well as the obligations stemming from its membership, “cannot be put into question or negotiated.” The text also says the assembly remains committed to “an open and results-oriented dialogue” with the Georgian authorities.

The June Vote

The Monitoring Committee approved the draft on 21 May 2026, and the full Assembly is expected to take it up during its June session, according to PACE’s press service. The text is the committee’s report on “the honouring of obligations and commitments by member states of the Council of Europe,” and it sits in the same procedural track that produced Resolution 2585 (2025) on the conditional ratification of the Georgian delegation’s credentials a year earlier.

The text is the rapporteurs’ assessment, not a binding instrument on Tbilisi. PACE described the document as heading to a “plenary debate,” where member-state delegations will vote on the committee’s product.

Bochorishvili’s “political tool” framing is Tbilisi’s opening move in the response. The rapporteurs Estrela and Ćudić will present the document in Strasbourg during the June session. The OSCE’s 23 invoking states have already received the rapporteur’s report and are considering follow-up steps in the Permanent Council, the body said in its press release on the Moscow Mechanism invocation. The June PACE vote is one of several ongoing tracks on Georgia, with the rapporteur’s full report still to be formally considered by the OSCE.