Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili accused the European Union of "blackmailing" the country's citizens with the threat of suspending the visa-free regime.
Points of attention
- The European Union is accused of blackmailing Georgian citizens by threatening to suspend the visa-free regime.
- Georgia's Parliament Speaker criticizes the EU's demands to improve governance, rule of law, and fight corruption as a condition to avoid visa-free regime suspension.
The Georgian parliament attacked the EU
He said this on February 27 while talking to journalists.
As noted, the reason for Papuashvili's statement was a letter from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in which she confirmed that the recently introduced partial suspension of the visa-free regime with Georgia may in the future extend to all citizens of the country.
According to von der Leyen, to avoid such a scenario, Brussels expects the Georgian authorities to take steps to improve governance, strengthen the rule of law, and fight corruption.
The main message of this blackmail is: "Georgian people, either you submit to our will and do what we say - we will appoint you judges, prosecutors, force you to legalize same-sex marriage, as everyone is now demanding, we will adopt the laws we need, we will repeal the ones we don't like - or you will have to come to our embassies for visas."
He stated that European officials have been "studying" Georgia for 35 years, but have never understood public sentiment.
The EU is not the first to speak to us like this – at different periods of our independence, visas were closed to us, economic sanctions were imposed. That's right: freedom or visa. This is the path the European Union is on today in the hands of the current leadership – they think they can put the people before such a choice and expect them to choose a visa.
Recall that in the package of reports on enlargement presented by the European Commission in November, Georgia is criticized the most. European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Cos stated that Georgia is currently a candidate country for EU membership "in name only."
Georgia has decided to liquidate the Anti-Corruption Bureau, which was established in 2022 on the recommendation of the European Union, as well as the Personal Data Protection Service, as of March 2, 2026.
