The Daily Beat: 26 June
Tbilisi burst into celebrations as Georgia made history and reached their first major tournament knockout stage with a victory over Portugal at Euro 2024. Georgia’s top star, Napoli’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who has been underwhelming in the previous two games, scored an early goal in the second minute. Giorgi Mikautadze converted the penalty kick in the 57th. Goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili gave another top performance, denying Portugal, who dominated the possession. By beating Portugal, Georgia completed the biggest Euros upset in history, based on FIFA rankings, and created a night to remember in their debut major tournament.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said during the briefing on June 26 that Russia is ready to follow the path of Russo-Georgian “normalization” and supports any endeavors of Tbilisi in this direction, including restoring diplomatic relations. Earlier, representatives of the pro-Kremlin Solidarity for Peace party, founded in 2023, appealed to Putin with a request to completely cancel the visa regime for Georgian citizens.
The Venice Commission published its opinion on the draft constitutional law on the Protection of Family Values and Minors. The Commission calls on the Georgian government to “reconsider this legislative proposal entirely and to not proceed with its adoption” or, if it proceeds with its adoption, to remove/modify some of the articles in a way that ensures non-discrimination of LGBTI people and compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Speaker Shalva Papuashvili reacted to the Venice Commission’s follow-up opinion on the draft amendments to the Electoral Code and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, downplaying the Commission’s opinion as politicized and describing it as “a recipe for the guaranteed crisis for the Central Election Commission.”
“Despite the disinformation campaigns of the ruling party in Georgia, one thing is clear: in the Georgian parliamentary elections on October 26, voters will decide whether to stop the EU perspective or continue on the European path. With the Georgian nightmare, the European dream is over,” Michael Roth, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag tweeted.
Cindy Dyer, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, commented about the impact of the Foreign Agents Law on Georgia’s standing in the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons 2024 Report. She noted that while there was great concern about the passage of the law, the impact of the law was hard to identify during the reporting period and it will be monitored in the future.
Irakli Kupradze, Secretary General of the opposition party Lelo for Georgia, was recognized as an aggrieved party more than two months after he was beaten by police during protests against the foreign agents’ law. The opposition politician was detained during the peaceful protest on April 16. He accused riot police of politically motivated brutality and said that he was severely beaten during and after the detention.
On June 25, the office of the major opposition party United National Movement in Poti (western Georgia) was vandalized. Davit Khomeriki, Chair of the UNM regional organization in Poti, said the double-glazed windows were broken by several blows with heavy objects. Earlier on the same day, Kote Abdushelishvili, another activist involved in planning the June 30 protest rally against the Georgian Manganese mining company, and a member of the movement to save the village of Zodi, was attacked by three masked men in daylight in central Tbilisi.
