Georgia Rejects EU Sanctions on Iran: Global Resistance to Western Coercion Grows
TEHRAN/TBILISI – Georgia has formally refused to join the European Union’s latest sanctions against Iran, with a senior lawmaker declaring Tbilisi will back international measures only when they serve national interests, as Tehran ridiculed Washington’s renewed economic threats as an admission of military failure.
The twin developments underscore growing international resistance to Western economic coercion, even as the United States escalates “economic terrorism” against the Islamic Republic.
Tengiz Sharmanashvili, a member of parliament for Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party, said Tbilisi’s international actions are determined by a single criterion.
“Whether Georgia joins any resolution or takes steps related to international
politics is determined by only one criterion: whether it is in Georgia’s interests at that moment or not,” he told Interpressnews.
“If a decision conflicts with Georgia’s interests, it simply does not matter to us whose interests it serves.”
Sharmanashvili pointed to Turkiye and Serbia, both EU candidate countries, which also stayed out of the latest sanctions round against Iran.
The sanctions package, announced by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, includes revising existing sanctions lists, extending measures over alleged Iranian military support for groups in Russia and West Asia, and listing individuals over human rights violations.
Nine countries signed on, including EU candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine.
Georgia’s refusal follows a broader loosening of alignment with Brussels. The EU’s 2025 enlargement report found Georgia’s alignment with the Common Foreign and Security Policy stood at 40% as of October 2025, down from 53% the previous year.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf ridiculed the U.S. government’s promise to impose “most crushing” sanctions, saying the war of aggression on Iran has left Americans struggling with acute economic problems.
“The U.S. has been experiencing some of the most acute economic problems as a result of more than six months of aggression and pressure on Iran,” Ghalibaf said in a post on his X account.
He highlighted falling wages, declining bond yields, and recession in the U.S. housing market. “Importing frozen meat to fix meat prices. Okay, that might work… What’s the plan for bonds, import frozen yields? Frozen homebuyers for housing? Frozen paychecks for wages?”
Ghalibaf said the frozen state of the U.S. economy is a result of “frozen foreign policy.” “The only thing still moving? The Iran boomerang,” he said.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said the U.S. economic pressure campaign amounts to an implicit admission of failure on the military front.
“The U.S. president says that he ordered an economic war and launched the most severe economic campaign against Iran. This amounts to an implicit admission of the enemy’s humiliating defeat in the military arena,” IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi said.
“If you were victorious in the military arena, you wouldn’t have to start an economic war,” Mohebbi said. He added that Iran has scenarios for any hostile action and can “easily establish economic relations with countries”.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed the threats as a “repeated scenario” and the “same old bullying in U.S. politics”.
“The fact that they have returned to the same old plans after the military operations shows that they are desperate. They cannot think of any solution against the great nation of Iran,” Araghchi said.
“We have never been afraid. All of their actions – whether blockades or other military moves – have failed, and this new issue will fail as well,” he said.
Araghchi said the U.S. “has no choice but to speak respectfully to the Iranian people and find a solution based on justice and honor”.
Brussels has also encountered growing internal resistance to its broader sanctions policy. Diplomatic backing for a recent round of sanctions against Russia collapsed in July, with Greece, France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Portugal demanding carve-outs or blocking the package to protect industries still profiting from Russian trade.
Diplomats described the scale of refusals as “unprecedented,” warning the process risks hollowing out sanctions themselves.
“It is a major crisis for the whole sanctions approach. If everyone demands derogations and loopholes, then at the end of the process, each package of sanctions is just an empty box,” one told the Financial Times.