The European Parliament has stood up to Russia’s occupation policy. While Russia denies Georgia’s sovereignty over a fifth of its territory, the European Parliament refuses to recognize Georgia’s sovereignty over its entire territory – Shalva Papuashvili

The recent resolutions of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have finally crossed the red lines set by the Georgian people and have blatantly violated Georgia’s sovereignty and the principles of national independence, – said the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili.

According to him, “in the name of the European Union and using the idea of ​​European integration, the European Parliament has practically drawn a line under the independence and sovereignty won by the Georgian people through struggle and blood, and has insulted the idea of ​​Georgian statehood.”

“With the report prepared by Rasa Jukneviciene, the European Parliament has effectively declared that the right to determine the legitimacy of the Georgian government does not belong to the Georgian people, but to the political bureaucracy in Brussels; that it is they who can decide who should govern Georgia and which government is acceptable to them. This is a denial of the fundamental principles of democracy. Democracy is based on the sovereign will of the people, while the European Parliament is practically asserting that the Georgian government should be determined by the trust of the EU political elite, instead of the choice of the Georgian people. Such an approach reflects the logic not of a union of equal partners, but of feudal vassalage, according to which sovereignty is not a natural right of the people, but a privilege granted from above. Thus, in its latest report, the European Parliament has practically aligned itself with Russia’s occupation policy. While Russia denies Georgian sovereignty over one-fifth of the country’s territory, The European Parliament refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Georgia over its entire territory. It is also unprecedented that the European Parliament refers to the former President of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, who has no state authority under the current constitution and legislation, as the legitimate representative of the country, and declares the parliament, government and president elected by the people as the “de facto authorities”. Such an attitude is disrespectful to two million one hundred thousand voters who expressed their political will in the parliamentary elections,” Papuashvili said.

As Papuashvili noted, the European Parliament resolution does not only confront Georgia’s democratic institutions.

“It directly concerns the second historical pillar of the Georgian state – the Georgian Orthodox Church. The mention of the Church in the report in the context of Russian religious networks and influence operations is the first open attack on the Georgian Church by an official European institution and offends the religious feelings of millions of believers. In addition, this dangerous precedent creates the feeling that the European Parliament, as in other cases, was the first to prepare the ground for such attacks.

A simultaneous attack on the sovereignty of the Georgian state and the Georgian Church is, in essence, an attack on the idea of ​​Georgian statehood. When the European Commission and the ruling political forces of the EU member states make such "They respond to disinformation and political sabotage with silence or support. They must understand that they will not be able to wash their hands of it and blame the European Parliament, which is hated by everyone, for the responsibility. Therefore, it is of principle for us that the European Commission should distance itself from such a blatant attack on the Georgian Church by the European Parliament," said Shalva Papuashvili.

According to the Speaker of the Parliament, the latest resolution of the European Parliament once again confirms that the EU bureaucracy has effective steps to take to restore dialogue with Georgia.

“For this, it is necessary to stop the hostile rhetoric towards the Georgian people and the Georgian Church; to end disinformation against the democratically elected government of Georgia; to fully recognize the state sovereignty of Georgia and to unswervingly uphold the fundamental principles of international law. It is hypocritical when, on the one hand, the European Parliament condemns the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, while, on the other hand, it itself tries to decide the issue of the legitimacy of the Georgian government instead of the Georgian people. Such selective application of the principles of international law and self-determination of peoples means that the European Parliament refuses to respect the equality of states and the free will of peoples and returns the world to the era when the fate of peoples was determined by the metropolises, and not by the population of these countries themselves,” said Shalva Papuashvili.