Thousands of pro-European Georgians took to the country’s streets again on Friday for a second night of protest, after the ruling party announced on Thursday that it would suspend EU accession negotiations until 2028, bringing an abrupt end to a long-standing goal. national
EU membership is hugely popular in Georgia, opinion polls show, and the announcement prompted a crowd to gather outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on Thursday, where riot police used cannons. water and tear gas to disperse them.
Again on Friday, thousands of people gathered in front of the Parliament building, a Soviet-style fortress-like building, flying flags of the EU and Georgia. Nearby were water cannons on standby, while police and special forces were deployed in large numbers.
Elene Khoshtarialeader of the Coalition for Change, Georgia’s largest opposition party, suffered a broken hand during Thursday’s crackdown, which he compared to police tactics in Russia and Belarus. Speaking to Reuters, his arm in a sling, he said: “We are not going to give in, we are not going to give up. But I think the international community should think about how to support people who really believe in European values.”
The freezing of negotiations has sparked widespread anger in Georgia, a country whose goal of EU membership is enshrined in its constitution.
Hundreds of active employees from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Education and Justice signed open letters on Friday denouncing the freezing of negotiations as unconstitutional.
A number of private universities have announced the suspension of classes due to the unrest, while Business groups have called on the government to review its position.
The Georgian Dream party, which won nearly 54 percent of the vote in an October election that opposition parties called fraudulent, said Thursday it was freezing membership negotiations because it called the EU “blackmail” against Georgia.
The decision caps months of deterioration in relations between Georgia and the West, which accuses the Tbilisi government of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies.
Georgian Dream passed laws this year against so-called “foreign agents” and LGBT rights that critics call draconian and Russian-inspired.
The party, widely seen as controlled by its founder, billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, says it still wants to join the EU in the future and that the laws passed are necessary to defend Georgia’s traditional values. The EU ambassador to Georgia on Friday called Georgian Dream’s position “heartbreaking” and condemned the crackdown on protesters.
