The Daily Beat: 21 March
The ruling Georgian Dream party fails to ensure enough support to register its resolution in EuroNest. The head of the Georgian delegation to the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, Maka Botchorishvili, accused the opposition members of the delegation and the Ukrainian delegation of not supporting a draft resolution on the occupied Georgian territories and the EU integration of Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia. The opposition members of the delegation have denied the accusation and blamed the anti-Western rhetoric of the Georgian Dream as the reason for the failure to collect enough signatures to register the resolution.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze also reacted to the failure to register the draft resolution, saying the EuroNest resolution was about supporting the country’s European course, further adding that the opposition representatives once again confirmed that they are lobbying against the country’s European integration.
On March 21, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) adopted the ALDE 2024 Manifesto at the party’s extraordinary congress in Brussels, which aims to ensure that Georgia and other candidate countries meet the EU accession criteria by 2029. The Manifesto has not yet been published, but Zurab (Girchi) Japaridze, leader of the opposition Girchi-More Freedom, an ALDE member party from Georgia, shared with the public an excerpt mentioning Georgia and other candidate countries.
The Delegation of the European Union to Georgia answered questions from the public about the EU’s work in Georgia and its support for the country’s path to EU membership, emphasizing that the granting of EU candidate status was “a recognition of the strong support that the people of Georgia have demonstrated for its European future,” while stressing the need to meet the nine conditions set by the European Commission to bring the country closer to the EU standards. Civil.ge has summarized some key messages from the EU Delegation’s answers.
Following the recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Special Investigation Service claimed that it stands ready to consider re-investigating Temirlan Machalikashvili’s case. 18-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili was shot in the head by special operations forces during his arrest and later died of sustained injuries in Tbilisi hospital. Recently, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe suggested that the Georgian authorities ensure the expeditious re-examination of the case files of Machalikashvili and others and Ochigava and inform the applicants and the Committee of the decision to reopen these investigations.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight winner, Georgian professional fighter Ilia Topuria, was awarded the medal of honor by President Salome Zurabishvili for his unique personal contribution to popularizing mixed martial arts in Georgia and successful sports activities. The award ceremony took place at the Orbelian Palace, and President Zurabishvili personally presented the state award to UFC champion Ilia Topuria, who has dual citizenship of Spain and Georgia.
The Win of the Day
The national football team advances to the Euro 2024 playoff finals with a 2-0 win over Luxemburg. Georgia is one win away from its tournament debut at the European Championship, facing 2004 champions Greece, who beat Kazakhstan 5-0 in their play-off semi-final in the Path C final on Tuesday. Victory will hand Georgia one of the three remaining places at the Euros in Germany, which will be held from June 14 to July 14.
