Parliament speaker: “hard to see” some European politicians “using Russian propaganda methods” in Georgia

Georgian parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Sunday said it was “hard to see” some European politicians “try to pursue their own political interests in Georgia using Russian propaganda methods”.

The comment came after the European Parliament's committee on foreign relations on Tuesday adopted the final version of rapporteur Sven Mikser’s report on Georgia with compromise amendments, which points to “excessive influence” of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of GD and the former prime minister, on developments in the country.

It also calls on Georgian authorities to stop “politically motivated criminal cases”, reconsider current cases brought against opposition media, their owners or family members, and allow the transfer of imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili abroad for treatment “on humanitarian grounds”. 

In his remarks over the matter, Papuashvili noted the MEPs who had made amendments to the “balanced bill” were “friends” of Saakashvili.

We have seen that there was a proposal to name a philanthropist [Ivanishvili] as an oligarch, to call an oligarch who amassed his wealth by looting the Georgian army [former United National Movement defence minister and now private TV channel owner David Kezerashvili] a media manager, and to call Mikheil Saakashvili, who created an authoritarian regime in Georgia and was engaged in oppressing the Georgian people, a beacon of democracy”, the parliament official said.

Papuashvili told Imed TV the bill was “an inverted reality that has nothing to do with reality” and stressed the method by which “this untruth was attempted to be established” was the “typical newspeak that comes from George Orwell”.

[T]his is typical propaganda, and I know the only Russian state that is engaged in such propaganda, and of course it is hard to see that some European politicians are trying to pursue their own political interests in Georgia using Russian propaganda methods”, he concluded in his comments.