Speaker Papuashvili: “EU is not a Saintly Alliance”

Speaking during the briefing at the Parliament, its Georgian Dream Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, has projected the ruling party’s vision of Europe, arguing the EU is “not a saintly alliance” and the rule-based international order is but a “construction imposed on small states.”

“The Georgian society has long dropped the rose-tinted glasses which it used to look at the world and, among others, at Europe. Everyone saw that Europe, and the EU in particular, is not a saintly alliance that acts in the best interests of others. They are all pursuing their very rigid, very pragmatic, well-thought-through private interest, which we witnessed clearly during the Ukraine-Russia war, when we found that nobody cares about our interests in the EU, in Brussels,” Papuashvili said. “Everyone has forsaken us for the escalation with Russia, everyone, including through the dealings of their NGOs and the [United] National Movement, who were pushing us for escalation with Russia.”

“The Georgian people saw then that the impression that the so-called rules-based international order is a value that everyone pursues, in reality, is a construction that is imposed upon small states, to convince them that the world is based on rules. But in reality, the cold calculation and pursuit of one’s own interests persists, like it did before World War II,” the GD parliament speaker added.

The statement, while in line with GD’s virulent Euro-bashing of recent years, comes as the ruling party tries to re-burnish its electoral credentials by winning the local elections on October 4, while most opposition leaders are imprisoned. Before rising in the ranks of the Georgian Dream in 2020, Papuashvili, a German-educated lawyer, had pursued a long career at Germany’s state development agency, GTZ (later known as GIZ), from 2003. He led the GIZ country team from 2017 to 2020.

Read also:

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• 13/02/2025 GD Denigrates European Parliament after Critical Resolution

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