Parliament Committee Chair: EP resolution on Georgia “beyond serious discussion”

Nikoloz Samkharadze, the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Georgian Parliament, on Thursday expressed criticism of the European Parliament's latest resolution that highlighted “democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia”, describing its content as “nonsensical”. 

The EP passed the resolution - proposed by 14 MEPs last week - on Thursday with 495 votes in favor, 73 against, and 86 abstentions. The document includes demands for sanctioning Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Honorary Chair and the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party and other officials, securing release of Mikheil Saakashvili, the imprisoned former President of Georgia, and a recall of the controversial law on “family values and protection of minors”, adopted in September by the country’s Parliament. 

In his press comments, Samkharadze stressed “it is difficult for me to take the resolution seriously. It has reached a point where it is no longer even shameful - just completely devoid of meaning”.

The MP further claimed the resolution contained “absurd claims” that were “impossible to address in a serious manner”, including records on Saakashvili and “positive sentiments” on the Soviet Union. 

A record has been made regarding the cult of [Soviet leader Joseph] Stalin. It seems Georgian citizens do not notice Stalin's monuments, which stand prominently in places like Freedom Square in Tbilisi, in front of the Sports Palace, on the runway of the airport, in Batumi on Era Square, and in Telavi [eastern Georgia]. Yet, somehow, it is only through the sharp and critical eyes of European parliamentarians that these monuments and the glorification of Stalin’s cult are brought into focus in Georgia”, Samkharadze remarked. 

He further noted the resolution had also touched on the subject of alleged Soviet nostalgia, saying “it suggests that we are preoccupied with longing for the Soviet era. Personally, I was 10 years old when the Soviet Union collapsed, and most of our members were not even born at the time. It seems the strongest sense of Soviet nostalgia may lie with those who never actually experienced the Soviet Union firsthand”. 

The lawmaker alleged the resolution was a “document filled with such absurdities that it is hard to believe it is real. It is utterly incomprehensible”.