PM: “We are ready to continue discussions on constitution”

Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili announced at today’s governmental meeting that the Georgian Dream ruling team is ready to continue discussions over constitutional amendments with the opposition and all interested players.

We are ready to adopt the constitution that will express the will of the biggest part of our people,” Kvirikashvili stated.

Kvirikashvili said that the Venice Commission and its chairperson "were happy” with the Georgian Government’s intention to provide high consensus over the country’s main law.

Kvirikashvili highlighted that the ruling team, unlike the previous United National Movement leadership, has made "huge steps” to ensure large-scale public involvement in discussing the constitutional changes.

The current constitution was amended under the United National Movement authorities in 2010.

• The Georgia Dream, NGOs and experts have stated many times that the changes adopted by the previous leadership caused "a range of problems and disbalance between different state institutions”.
• The aim of the ongoing constitutional reform is to fill gaps and produce the "best, European standard constitution.”

The Venice Commission said they approved "biggest part of the planned changes” and recommended the government to continue discussions on the topics that are most disputed.

The most disputed issues are related to introducing fully proportional elections, the direct or indirect election of president, sharing of undistributed votes [those votes received by the parties which failed to appear in Parliament] between the parliamentary parties and several others.