They are asking us to destroy our own country by telling us to comply with the EU visa policy, i.e. to impose sanctions on Russia – Shalva Papuashvili
They are asking us to destroy our own country by telling us to comply with the EU visa policy, i.e. to impose sanctions on Russia, – said Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia.
According to Papuashvili, “the Georgian government cannot destroy the country because Brussels wants to turn visas into a political tool today.”
“The case concerns the introduction of a visa regime for diplomatic passports. When the visa regime was introduced, it was a violation of an international agreement by the European Union. The European Union is a violator of international law towards Georgia, which in itself is a great shame. We see that the sense of shame no longer exists in Brussels. When they realized that this was a violation of international law, they introduced additional rules specifically for Georgia. To the previously existing criteria, which are of a technical nature, they added political criteria that never existed as long as the European Union, its visa and visa-free regime, existed. The Georgian people, the four million population living in Georgia, were valued. The European Union gathered, spent time to introduce special rules and adapt its rules to Georgia. This is the second violation – they adapted the European Union rules to one specific subject, in this case, Georgia. The third – with this political criterion, with their own opinion and intelligence, they opened up the freedom to do whatever they want. They ask you. Now there is no limit to imagination, they tell us to impose sanctions on Russia. In other words, they tell us to kill ourselves if we want visa-free travel. If we kill ourselves and destroy ourselves, who else should travel visa-free to the European Union? Maybe they can explain this to us. They are pushing us to do this, asking us to destroy our own country by telling us to come into compliance with the EU visa policy, that is, to impose sanctions on Russia. They are demanding this directly. We cannot destroy our country because Brussels wants to turn visas into a political tool today. This is another third violation when you use visa policy as a political tool. All countries have a visa system and then now we have to introduce visas for Polish officials, what should we do, everything has to escalate like this? ", - Papuashvili said.
As Papuashvili noted, the European Union has an immature policy.
“This is the immature policy of the European Union. Brussels has brought the European Union to this point, it has brought it with this immaturity. That is why Rubio does not even meet with Kaia Callas. Since the European Union has such an immature foreign policy, they do not even pay attention to it, they do not even consider the EU’s highest foreign representative worthy of a meeting,” Papuashvili said.
In addition, according to the Speaker of the Parliament, the meeting scheduled for June 11 in Brussels is of a technical nature.
“A technical group is represented from Georgia, which will review the issues. If they have any political claims, they should talk to politicians. These issues cannot be discussed at a technical level. We have political answers to political questions. Let them say it publicly and tell the Georgian people what they are actually demanding. They demand that we impose sanctions on the Russians, that the European Union continue to have the opportunity to secretly finance radical political groups in Georgia, and in return they offer us strawberries. As the saying has become established in the region, sovereignty does not change for strawberries,” Papuashvili said.
Recall, according to the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first meeting between the Georgian side and the European Commission within the framework of the visa regulation will be held in Brussels on June 11.