Members of PACE Monitoring Committee visiting Georgia
PACE delegation members met with the Georgian parliament speaker in Tbilisi earlier today. Photo: parliament of Georgia press office.
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Members of PACE Monitoring Committee Titus Corlatean, Clause Kern and Bas Klein have arrived in Georgia on a two-day visit to discuss election-related issues and planned reforms in the electoral and justice fields.
The PACE delegation has already met with Georgian Parliament Speaker Kakha Kuchava earlier today.
The meeting was mainly focused on the importance of the implementation of the EU-mediated agreement,” said the parliament of Georgia press office.
The agreement was signed by the majority of Georgian political parties back in April 2021 to resolve the political tension in the country which began after the 2020 parliamentary elections.
Along with topics related to the 2020 elections, the document proposes large-scale electoral and judicial reforms.
Only the United National Movement opposition party, European Georgia and the Labour party have not signed the document so far of the nine political parties which won seats in the 10th convocation of the Georgian parliament.
The delegation members said that PACE monitors will observe this year’s municipal elections in Georgia.
The UNM announced it would be taking up its mandates in parliament late yesterday, after a six-month political standoff, saying that the reason they declined to sign the EU-mediated agreement is that ‘it includes several notes which are unacceptable for us.’ The embassies said in a joint statement that the agreement proposed by the European Council President Charles Michel back in April 2021, which was signed by six Georgian political parties and individual MPs, contains topics which are crucial for the country’s further democratic development.
MEP Marina Kaljurand has once again urged Georgian opposition MPs to take up their parliamentary mandates in line with the EU-mediated agreement.
The European Georgia opposition party has made a final decision earlier today and stated that the party will not enter the state legislature, while three of its five mandates have already been taken up.
The United States welcomes the agreement reached by the government of Georgia and several opposition parties on April 19, under the mediation of European Union President Charles Michel, to bring an end to Georgia’s political crisis, announces the US Embassy to Georgia.