Tbilisi accuses Brussels of straying from European values

Georgia’s Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has accused Brussels of turning away from the very European values it was built to protect, saying the European Union’s institutions have become “an ideologised bureaucratic machine” intolerant of dissent.

Papuashvili said Brussels is abandoning its promises and the very foundations it was established to uphold, Caliber.Az reports per Georgian media.

“We are witnessing a very sad moment in history, when Brussels is clearly distancing itself from Europe and European values,” Papuashvili said

According to Papuashvili, the EU, once seen as a defender of democracy and human rights, has transformed into a structure that “seeks to silence critics and eliminate opponents by any means necessary.”

He said this distorted vision of Georgia presented in Brussels “has nothing to do with the real country,” describing the latest EU enlargement report as biased and “stitched with white threads.”

Papuashvili argued that it is not Georgia but the EU institutions that are experiencing a “value rollback.” He pointed to the bloc’s 2022 decision to deny Georgia candidate status, despite what he claimed was Georgia’s stronger performance than Moldova and Ukraine on key integration indicators.

“The rollback in values is also evident in what Brussels is doing in Georgia,” he said. “It supports groups that promote hate speech instead of reconciliation, polarisation instead of consensus, and violence instead of dialogue.”

Nevertheless, Papuashvili stressed that Georgia remains committed to joining the EU.

“Georgia will continue preparing for membership—not in the European Union that today’s Brussels bureaucracy has stripped of European substance, but in the one that aims to restore true European values,” he said.

He concluded that the Georgian government and people have “a dignified response” to Brussels, grounded in “tolerance, the rule of law, respect, and the promotion of peace.”

By Aghakazim Guliyev