Parliament Committee Chair: ruling team “ready to cooperate” with opposition on EU conditions

Anri Okhanashvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee from the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday said the Parliamentary majority was “ready to cooperate” with the opposition in the lawmaking body on work for implementing the 12-point conditions outlined by the European Union for granting the country the membership candidate status.

In his remarks over the matter, Okhanashvili stressed the ruling team did not support “radicalisation and polarisation” of the domestic political environment.

[I]n our political life, we all should do the work every day that will weaken this polarisation. Therefore, we were and are ready for this. That’s why we asked our opponents that the work on the 12-point conditions [outlined by EU] would be one of the mitigating circumstances for this polarisation and would weaken it”, the Parliament official said. 

He invited a part of the domestic opposition to engage in the process, pointing out that “the door is open for everyone to come and participate in this process”.

We do not support the radicalisation and polarisation, and those political groups that do not participate in [Parliamentary] working groups provide a clear example that they support the radicalisation and polarisation. These are the [opposition] United National Movement, Lelo and Strategy Agmashenebeli [parties], which do not participate in these working groups”, Okhanashvili noted. 

On June 24, the European Council granted the membership candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, and said it would be ready to grant the same status to Georgia once the outstanding priorities outlined by the European Commission were addressed by the Georgian Government.

On July 1, the ruling Georgian Dream party presented its strategy for fulfilling the conditions outlined by the European Council for granting the country the EU membership candidate status.