The Daily Beat: 13 December
On the eve of the EU Council meeting, President Salome Zurabishvili hosted a reception for the diplomatic corps and pro-European politicians, marking the end of the public campaign – “Our Voice to Europe.” President Zurabishvili addressed the guests at the reception, expressing her hope for receiving EU candidacy and continuing on the European path with double responsibility. At the reception, she symbolically handed over the signatures collected during the pro-EU campaign to the EU Ambassador Paweł Herczyński. In turn, Ambassador Herczyński thanked the President for her EU efforts, promising to send the signatures to Charles Michel’s office.
On the eve of the EU Council meeting, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili addressed the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, in a capacity of the Spanish EU presidency, expressing hope that the European Council will take a “strategic and forward-looking decision” to grant Georgia candidate status. In a letter sent to European leaders, PM Garibashvili pledged to continue working on the necessary reforms, emphasizing that the future of Georgia lies in the EU.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has enlisted the services of Israeli spin doctors Moshe Klughaft and Miri Michaeli, co-founders of ACT News, an AI-generated news company, to prepare for the upcoming 2024 parliamentary elections in Georgia. Klughaft, an experienced election strategist and campaign manager, previously collaborated with Georgian Dream in 2018, contributing to Salome Zurabishvili’s victory in the presidential elections. The opposition claims that Klughaft’s political tactics include aggressive rhetoric and hate speech in election campaigning.
Speaker Shalva Papuashvili lambasted “multimillionaire NGOs,” saying they are “not loyal to Georgia but to their funders.” The speaker’s statement on NGOs was made in the context of adopting the Defense of Democracy Package by the EC, which is billed as an effort to “shed light on covert foreign influence” in the EU. Speaker Papuashvili reflected ironically that the EU had slammed the government last March for adopting the law on the “Agents of Foreign Influence,” while today, “the European Union is asking for the same today by initiating a Directive.”
Although the European Parliament has no formal say on the EU enlargement process, it has overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling the European Council to grant Georgia EU candidate status and open accession negotiations with Ukraine, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzogovina. In a resolution, the MEPs stressed the strategic importance of the EU enlargement process as a key geopolitical tool for the EU amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strongly criticizing Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s stance on Ukraine’s accession talks.
The Kremlin’s man in charge of occupied Abkhazia’s foreign relations, Inal Ardzinba, is visiting Syria, where he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, discussing prospects for deeper cooperation, including the possible opening of a “consulate” in Damascus. “Abkhazia and Syria are fighting for a fairer world order – multipolarity. We represent the global majority – this is more than 85% of the world’s population. These are people who do not want to live under the diktat of the West,” – Ardzinba told the Syrian media.
Data of the Day
National Statistics Office (Geostat) published express data indicating that Georgia’s external merchandise trade (excluding non-declared trade) increased by 14.7% in January-November 2023 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, reaching USD 19 626.4 million. According to Geostat, external merchandise trade saw exports rise by 11.1% to USD 5 583.3 million, while imports increased by 16.3%, totaling USD 14 042.1 million. At the same time, the trade deficit amounted to USD 8 457.8 million, representing 43.1% of the overall trade turnover.
