Parliament Speaker claims part of opposition “sabotaging” Georgia's European future

Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili on Thursday said a part of the domestic opposition was “sabotaging” the process of Georgia fulfilling the 12-point conditions established by the European Union for granting it the membership candidate status.

Papuashvili referred to the opposition parties of United National Movement, Lelo and Strategy Aghmashenebeli and said their refusal to take part in the work was not a boycott, but a “sabotage of the process”. 

A boycott means that a person or organisation does not get involved in the process, while a sabotage means that it damages the process by non-involvement”, the head of the legislative body said.

Papuashvili stressed that the priorities set by the European Council envisaged an “inclusive process”, with an involvement of the domestic stakeholders as wide as possible.

Failure to engage undermines the inclusiveness of this process. This is their calculation - to damage the inclusiveness of the process, so that Georgia does not receive a positive response [from the European Union]. This is a sabotage of Georgia's European future”, he concluded in his comments.