President Suspects Pro-Russian Activities Orchestrated Against EU Bid

President Salome Zurabishvili has said that “in the most crucial moments in a country with more than 80% of the population in favor of EU membership and the European path… it does not make sense for the activities of those pro-Russian, violent, homophobic, and anti-European groups to be spontaneous and non-orchestrated.”

“What else should serve in such a planned and successive way [to see] street violence, violence against politicians, violence against women politicians, attacks on ambassadors and European principles, calls to insult the European symbol?” President Zurabishvili wondered, referring to some of the incidents in Tbilisi earlier today.

“These are deliberate actions to damage the country’s European path, which do not express the opinion of the Georgian people and do not coincide with their European choice.”

She said these actions were part of a “plan to hinder Georgia on the European integration path, to make it appear as an anti-Western and anti-European state through similar provocations.”

Noteworthy, President Zurabishvili’s remarks came shortly after the Georgian Dream Government had announced launching a competence dispute with the President over ambassadorial (non)appointments. MORE

Georgia, like Ukraine and Moldova, is awaiting the EU Commission’s opinion on its candidacy bid for the 27-member bloc, slated to be released later in June. Tbilisi and Chișinău applied to join the European Union on March 3, following the suit of Kyiv days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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