European integration has never been suspended and cannot be suspended, said the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, commenting on the relevant statements of EU representatives following the victory of the Georgian Dream in the parliamentary elections.
The process not only continues, but remains a constant priority for Georgia, Papuashvili stressed.
He pointed out that some representatives of the European Union are overly politicizing this issue and warned that such hasty statements are transforming European integration from a cooperation tool into a political weapon. According to him, this undermines the very idea of European integration and damages the reputation of the European Union.
“Lately we have often heard terms like “suspension” or “freezing” of European integration. However, the very fact that the European Commission continues to work on enlargement, evaluate Georgia’s progress and give us recommendations shows that these terms are more political statements than a real institutional position,” Papuashvili noted.
Earlier, the EU ambassador to Georgia, Pavel Gerchinsky, said that Georgia’s European integration was suspended due to a “rollback of democracy” by the Georgian government.
