Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Arizona, US.

With the huge protests that we see in the streets of Tbilisi, is that a sign of the Georgian government moving closer to Russia?

Well, it is certainly a sign of the Georgian government being more authoritarian and distinctly more anti-Western. And that is, of course, endangering the ambitions of Georgia to move closer to the European Union, eventually membership. We'll see what happens. But Georgia was given this status of candidate country to the European Union. I think what we see now is going to have the consequences that there's not going to be any movement forward on that until we see Georgia moving into more Western, Democratic, and liberal direction.