Parliament Vice Speaker hails Borrell visit as “high-level support” for Georgia, “great political event”

Archil Talakvadze, the Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, on Wednesday highlighted the upcoming visit of Josep Borrell, the European Union High Representative, to the country by calling it a “high-level support for Georgia and a great political event”.

In his remarks over the matter, Talakvadze alleged the opposition United National Movement party would “come up with different speculations to discredit” the “important” political event.

Borrell’s visit is a high-level support for Georgia. His visit will be a good opportunity for the Government to discuss the progress achieved by Georgia and to talk about the [European] future. It will be a good and positive visit for Georgia, because Borrell’s arrival in Georgia is a great political event”, Talakvadze said.

“You will see that the United National Movement party and their satellites or media will come up with a thousand speculations about this visit in order to smear, damage and discredit such an important political event. The radical opposition is not united for Georgia, but united against Georgia”, he alleged.

The Parliament official stressed the alleged efforts by the domestic opposition to credit successes in the country’s work towards the EU membership candidate status to its citizens but not the Government was a “classic Russian propaganda method” and was seeking to create separation between them to “somehow justify the disinformation campaign” by a part of the domestic opposition.

Borrell will be on a visit to Georgia from Thursday to Friday to discuss progress on the country’s European integration path and exchange views on wider foreign policy and regional matters. In the framework of the visit, he will meet the Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili.