Kobakhidze Writes Open Letter to EU Leaders Questioning Europe's Democratic Credentials
By Messenger Staff
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has addressed an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, questioning the EU's commitment to democratic values and citing police violence against protesters in Copenhagen as evidence of European democratic backsliding.
Kobakhidze opened by framing Georgia as inherently European. "Georgia is a country founded on European values-a country where human dignity, humanism, freedom and national identity are not merely declared principles, but deeply rooted values shaped over centuries and ingrained in the very fabric of the nation," he wrote. He described the EU not as a bureaucratic institution but as "a common European civilizational space- a union that belongs not to any particular political figure, European leader or Euro-bureaucrat, but to the peoples of Europe, including the Georgian people."
He said the open letter was necessitated by the EU's unilateral suspension of political dialogue with Georgia and its repeated rejection of "formats of discussion and cooperation proposed by us."
The centerpiece of the letter was an appeal over what Kobakhidze described as police brutality against peaceful demonstrators in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. "How do you assess the violence that unfolded in Copenhagen, where participants of a peaceful demonstration were first beaten with batons and then attacked using police dogs?" he asked the three EU leaders. He said the footage "clearly revealed a disturbing reality to the international community," arguing that while "for years Europe had been regarded as a benchmark for the protection of democracy, human rights, freedom of speech and expression," today "an opposite trend is becoming increasingly evident."
Kobakhidze then broadened his critique into a sweeping indictment of the EU's current trajectory, asking the three leaders where they believed "the processes associated with democratic backsliding, economic stagnation, migration crisis, erosion of historical memory, weakening of national and gender identities and the breakdown of public identity are leading Europe." He asked how Europe had "fallen into such a deep crisis of values" and where "this path" was ultimately taking the EU.
"It is a regrettable and alarming fact that today the European Union often disregards the natural, cultural and historical foundations of society," he wrote, adding that "there is a growing sense that the European space is gradually moving away from the principles that once made it a symbol of democracy and the protection of human rights throughout the world."
Kobakhidze closed with a direct demand for answers. "Georgia-a European country and a candidate for accession to the European Union, expects a clear answer from you: what plan does the European Union have, in what direction are developments within the Union heading and what will be the ultimate outcome of these troubling processes-processes about which not only we speak, but which are also being publicly discussed by the populations and political leaders of other European countries?" he wrote.
