Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Georgia’s party-ban hearing enters its second week with no opposition motion granted
The Constitutional Court resumes at noon today with the presentation of Ana Tsitlidze of the United National Movement, its chairman Revaz Nadaraia said. The plenum of seven judges has granted none of the opposition’s motions since the case opened on 21 October. On Monday Nadaraia warned a UNM representative that doubting the court’s impartiality has its limit.
Central Asia’s five foreign ministers meet Georgia’s in Batumi for the first time
The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met Maka Botchorishvili in Batumi on Friday in the first meeting of this format, and visited the port with the head of Georgia’s Maritime Transport Agency. The Middle Corridor, digital freight documents and port and rail capacity filled the agenda. Botchorishvili called closer ties with Central Asia a key foreign policy priority for Georgia.
Four governments approve the Black Sea cable study and GECO puts the cost at €22.1 billion
The feasibility study for the Caspian to Black Sea to Europe green energy corridor is complete and approved by the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary, the project company GECO said in an investment presentation reported by APA on Saturday. The company puts total investment at about €22.1 billion and plans three high-voltage direct current lines of 1.3 gigawatts each, the first in 2032.
Georgia’s Constitutional Court rules today on summoning Ivanishvili in the party-ban case
Georgia’s Constitutional Court resumes its hearing on the banning of five opposition parties at 14:00 today, 26 October, after three days of sittings in Batumi. The plenum will first rule on a motion by Gakharia’s party to question Bidzina Ivanishvili and other Georgian Dream leaders as witnesses, then turn to the merits. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze says the five are in reality one party.
Lelo’s motions fall on day two in Batumi as Japaridze asks what the party is accused of
The Constitutional Court rejected every motion by Lelo Strong Georgia on the second day of hearing Georgian Dream’s suit to ban five opposition parties, including referral to the European Court of Human Rights and an invitation to Venice Commission experts, Badri Japaridze told reporters on 22 October. The hearing resumes on 23 October. A Georgian Dream committee chairman defended the new channel to Moscow.
Georgia’s party-ban court keeps its judges and Kobakhidze names a Russia envoy
On the first day of the hearing on banning five opposition parties, the Constitutional Court’s plenum rejected the motions to recuse its judges and removed a National Movement leader from the room for the rest of the proceedings. In Tbilisi the same afternoon Irakli Kobakhidze appointed Giorgi Zurabashvili his special representative for relations with Russia and said no new phase was beginning.
Georgia’s Constitutional Court opens hearings on a bid to ban five opposition parties
A lawsuit signed by 88 Georgian Dream MPs in the 150-seat parliament asks the Constitutional Court to declare five opposition parties unconstitutional: the United National Movement, the Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, the Federalist Party and Gakharia’s For Georgia. Substantive hearings run in Batumi on 21, 22 and 23 October, and the opposition will protest outside the court from 11:00 while its lawyers sit inside.
Garibashvili’s bribery case goes to trial in open court after a hearing he did not attend
Judge Lela Kalichenko sent the former prime minister’s case to a hearing on the merits on Monday after the defence asked for its termination and the prosecution objected. The charge is a bribe of 1.5 million lari taken as part of a group, with 750,000 lari said to have passed through his former defence minister’s hands.
Georgia’s party-ban hearings open in Batumi on 21 October as the opposition plans protests
The Constitutional Court’s proceedings on the petition to ban opposition parties begin on 21 October, Coalition for Change leader Nika Gvaramia said on 15 October, naming Batumi as the venue and promising to attend, Interpressnews reported. The opposition alliance announced a protest campaign from 25 October to a rally on 28 November, and Georgian Dream’s majority meets Bidzina Ivanishvili on 17 October.
Venice Commission finds Georgia’s grants and party laws block an opposition from surviving
Europe’s constitutional-law body, the Venice Commission, has published its opinion on the amendments Georgia’s parliament adopted in March to the Law on Grants, the organic law on political associations and the criminal code, Interpressnews reported on 13 October. The legislation imposes disproportionate and unnecessary restrictions on freedom of association and expression, the commission found, “preventing the formation and survival of a political opposition”.
The IMF slows seven of nine regional economies in 2026 and lifts Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan
The IMF’s October World Economic Outlook, published on Tuesday, has growth slowing this year in seven of the nine economies CAW covers, with Kyrgyzstan still the fastest at 9% and Azerbaijan the slowest at 1.7%. Uzbekistan edges up to 7.8% and Azerbaijan gains too, from 1.4%. World growth slows to 3.1% in 2026 and recovers to 3.4% in 2027, the Fund says.
Kallas calls the EU’s Georgia policy short on both counts and returns to it in January
The EU’s current approach to Georgia neither creates sufficient pressure for change nor lets the bloc fully pursue its European strategic interests, Kaja Kallas said after the foreign ministers’ council in Luxembourg on Monday, and the ministers will return to it in January. In the Council’s own summary that reads as grave concern and an in-depth discussion expected in January. The governing party answered before she spoke and after.
Russia’s watchdog halts wine, cognac, beer and Nabeglavi water from six Georgian producers
Russia’s consumer watchdog ordered a halt to the import and sale of drinks from six Georgian producers, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on Saturday, citing an order obtained by RBC. On the list are wines from Tbilvino, Teliani Valley, Wineman and Askaneli Brothers, whose cognac is also named, beer from the Georgian Beer Company, Nabeglavi mineral water and one Coca-Cola soft drink. The order calls itself a temporary sanitary measure.
Georgian prosecutors investigate a central bank board member over an alleged crypto stake
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia opened an investigation on Friday into Nana Keinishvili, a member of the National Bank’s board since September 2023, under article 337 of the Criminal Code on illegal participation in entrepreneurial activity by a public official, acting on statements and audio recordings that the crypto operator Bitexchange sent to the bank. The board will consider her temporary recusal at its next sitting, the bank said.
Kobakhidze calls the European Parliament worse than the Supreme Soviet of the late 1980s
Georgia’s prime minister answered Thursday’s 445-vote resolution on Friday by saying the European Parliament reminds him of the Supreme Soviet, which in his words was in better shape in the 1980s, while Speaker Shalva Papuashvili counted the ninth hostile resolution and Kakha Kaladze called them riddled with lies. EU foreign ministers take up Georgia under current affairs in Luxembourg on Monday.
MEPs pass the Georgia and Azerbaijan resolutions by 445 and 492 votes as Baku protests
Strasbourg adopted the joint motion on Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the opposition parties on Thursday by 445 votes to 37 with 97 abstentions, and the motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners by 492 to 23 with 60, by the minutes of the sitting. Within four hours the Milli Majlis called the Azerbaijan text a biased political action, and Georgian Dream’s Irakli Kadagishvili said the resolutions serve narrow political interests.
Three ministers answer the Irkutsk laboratory death as Moscow clears 90% of contacts
The death of a laboratory worker at Irkutsk’s anti-plague institute, pneumonia of unspecified etiology to Rospotrebnadzor and suspected pneumonic plague to ECDC, drew three answers on Wednesday: Mongolia’s health minister said temperatures are taken at the border and isolation rooms stand ready, Armenia’s minister told parliament arrivals face enhanced checks, and Georgia’s said there is no reason for panic. Moscow reported more than 90% of contacts released from observation.
MEPs vote on Georgia’s party-ban bid and Azerbaijan’s prisoners at noon in Strasbourg
The European Parliament votes between 12:00 and 14:00 Strasbourg time on Thursday on a five-group motion that condemns Georgian Dream’s lawsuit against the opposition parties and names Bidzina Ivanishvili, Irakli Kobakhidze, Shalva Papuashvili and Kakha Kaladze for sanctions, and on a six-group motion on Azerbaijan’s political prisoners that asks the member states to prepare measures under the EU’s human rights sanctions regime. Neither binds anyone outside the chamber.
The World Bank lifts Kyrgyzstan to 9.6% and Georgia to 7% as the region slows to 2.2%
Growth in Europe and Central Asia is likely to slow to 2.2% in 2026 from 2.6% in 2025, the World Bank said in its Economic Update released in Washington on 6 October, with Central Asia the fastest subregion at 5.8%, Kyrgyzstan at 9.6% and Uzbekistan at 7.9%. Georgia’s forecast rises to 7% from the 5% of April, by Georgian press accounts of the same update.