The EU consistently urged the Georgian authorities to reverse the democratic backsliding, repeal repressive legislation, says the European Union's 2025 Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World.

“The EU consistently urged the Georgian authorities to reverse the democratic backsliding, repeal repressive legislation, adopt democratic, comprehensive and sustainable reforms, in line with the core principles of European integration and the nine steps set out for candidate status. The EU called on the Georgian authorities to respect, protect and uphold the human rights of citizens, including the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and media freedom and pluralism, and to release those arbitrarily detained. These calls were also reiterated by the EU Council Presidency in December 2025, noting that the actions taken by the Georgian authorities fall short of the EU’s expectations of a candidate country. The EU continued to assess Georgia’s compliance with the visa liberalisation benchmarks.

In December 2025 the Commission found that Georgia has further regressed in the areas of governance and fundamental rights and continues to be in breach of these benchmarks. The Commission has launched the procedure under the new visa suspension mechanism to suspend the exemption from the visa requirement for nationals of Georgia holding diplomatic, service and official passports”, reads the report.