Georgian Parliament Speaker accuses Brussels of deliberately damaging relations between Georgia, EU

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday accused Brussels of deliberately damaging relations between Georgia and the European Union in order to conceal financial activities linked to EU-funded programs.

Papuashvili’s remarks followed the publication of a letter from EU Ambassador Paweł Herczyński to Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, according to Papuashvili, proves that it was the EU - not Georgia - that had suspended the integration process.

“Based on that lie, the European Union declared that it was halting cooperation. Not only were contacts suspended, but also various projects were stopped - projects that were created specifically to support the integration process. They even stopped meetings of joint councils. Sometimes Georgian representatives were not invited at all. This is the integration process they halted - they stopped dialogue and integration simply because Ambassador Herczyński refused to make public what exactly they were funding in Georgia. Later, we found out that with EU funding, they were purchasing gas masks and other equipment to resist the police. And because they wanted to hide this, they did all of this”, he said.

The Speaker contended that the EU’s actions were motivated by a desire to obscure the details of how European funds were being used in Georgia.

“Irakli Kobakhidze [the Prime Minister] said that the Georgian people will not become beggars who plead to restart the process at any cost - promising to do whatever they are told - to escalate, abolish the judiciary, arrest whoever they say, and free whoever they say. But he also said that on our side, we will continue preparing the country so that when the political climate in Brussels changes and patriots come to power, Georgia will be ready for everything”, he noted.

He further alleged that EU-funded programs were supplying “gas masks and other equipment to resist the police”, and that efforts to prevent this information from becoming public led to the diplomatic rift.

“One main piece of disinformation has been exposed - coordinated by Brussels and spread by certain media, parties, and NGOs - claiming that the Georgian Government stopped the integration process. It has now been confirmed in black and white, written in the letter, who actually stopped it. It was Brussels - back in June, months earlier - because the Georgian Parliament refused to follow the instruction not to adopt the transparency law, which is based on American standards, and because they wanted to hide their own finances. Can you imagine what Brussels did? It damaged EU-Georgia relations just to conceal its own finances. What other reason did they have?”, he said.

“Mr. Herczyński himself told me that there were political funds coming from the European Endowment for Democracy. When I asked him to show me exactly what those funds were, he refused. The ambassador of a foreign country, who spends money here, refused to show it to the Speaker of Georgia’s Parliament - and these are the people who dare to make accusations against us?”, Papuashvili concluded.