Georgian Parliament Speaker says illusion of fair international order now exposed

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday said that small countries were once led to believe that a rules-based international order would be respected by all, but today it is clear that this was always somewhat of an illusion.

In his remarks, Papuashvili stressed that powerful states have always acted according to their own agendas.

“Opponents need to understand that it is now 2026. This is no longer 2020 or 2022, when there was an illusion of black and white, of good and evil”, the Speaker said.

“The world is not structured around clear divisions of good and evil. What small countries were persuaded to believe - that there is a rules-based international order obeyed by everyone - was, in hindsight, always partly an illusion. Powerful and large states have always acted according to their own interests. Today, this has simply become more openly visible”, he continued.

“This is why certain groups need to discard the idea that institutions like the European Union or other Western structures are pure, infallible arbiters of truth acting in the best interests of all. The world does not work that way. This has been evident, for example, when the most vocally anti-Russian Baltic states are also among the most active in trading wine with Russia. The world is as it is, and this applies to those naive Georgians who blindly wave someone else’s flag”, Papuashvili concluded.