Placeholder canvas
News

Opposition Criticizes Ruling Party Work on European Commission’s Recommendations

Several Parliamentary opposition parties and independent MPs released a joint statement on 5 September which criticized the ruling Georgian Dream party and emphasized that the European Commission’s 12 recommendations and receiving EU candidate status is “Georgia’s historic chance and main task.”

The statement underscored that upon receiving the European Commission’s 12 recommendations, the ruling Georgian Dream party interpreted its points in a way that is “fundamentally against the implementation of the recommendations…”

The opposition’s statement pointed out for example, that per the ruling party’s interpretation, de-oligarchization refers not to Georgian Dream party founder and ex-PM, Bidzina Ivanishvili, but to the founders of certain opposition parties and critical media organizations.

The opposition further highlighted that when it comes to judicial reforms as outlined by the Commission’s recommendations, the ruling party “does not recognize the presence of clans in the judicial system and politicized justice, and tries to fulfill the recommendations related to the court by formally solving procedural issues.”

The opposition also expressed concern for the recommendation of depolarization and the fact that the ruling party “refused to fulfill the constitutional changes stipulated by the Charles Michel [19 April] Agreement” and considers depolarization to be “silencing the opposition spectrum and critical media…”

In that context, the statement claimed that the ruling party “using the method of hybrid warfare launched an informational attack on the pro-Western opposition spectrum, non-governmental organizations, Ambassadors, U.S., and EU institutions under the pretext that all of the above wanted to start a war in Georgia and open a second front.”

Per the opposition, the ruling party also “roughly limited the participation of authoritative non-government organizations financed from the West (International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy) in the working process organized by the government.”

The opposition further points out that they called on the government to convene a special session of Parliament in order to agree on a common plan but “Unfortunately, Georgian Dream announced a boycott of the parliamentary process and demonstratively locked the doors of the session hall.” As a result, opposition parties and independent MPs “had to start a working process independent of the government to prepare the necessary initiatives.”

According to the opposition, they have prepared the necessary legislative initiatives for the implementation of the European Commission’s recommendations, which “are in line with the views of the non-governmental sector and correspond to the recommendations and conclusions of the European Commission, the Venice Commission, OSCE/ODIHR, and other international organizations.”

The opposition parties noted that after the final reconciliation of the initiatives, the documents will be made public and relevant bills will be initiated in Parliament by the end of September.

“Once again, we confirm that the main political task is to fulfill the recommendations of the European Commission, for which we are ready to take responsibility for the initiatives presented by us and to support all the initiatives necessary for the actual implementation of the European Commission’s recommendations,” the statement concluded.

Also Read:

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)

მსგავსი/Related

Back to top button