Pro-European protest in Tbilisi Photo: Zurab Tsertsvadze / AP / Profimedia
Pro-European Georgians took to the streets for a second night in a row after Tbilisi’s ruling party announced it was suspending negotiations to join the European Union until 2028, a move that represents a sudden freeze of an old national goal, Reuters reports.
Support for joining the European Union is widely supported according to opinion polls, and the government’s decision prompted thousands of people to gather in front of the Parliament on Thursday evening. The gendarmerie used water cannons and tear gas to disperse them.
Dissatisfaction including among the officials of the ministry
And during Friday evening several thousands of Georgians came to the Parliament with Georgian and EU flags. The police and special forces are already on the scene, even with the water cannons used the previous day.
Elene Khoshtaria, a leader of the largest opposition party, the Coalition for Change, was elected with a broken hand during Thursday’s police crackdown, which she compared to repression tactics used in Russia and Belarus. “We will not give in, we will not give up, but I think the international community should think about how to support people who really believe in European values,” Elene Khoshtaria told Reuters.
The freezing of the discussions was largely met with the revolt in Georgia, which included in the Constitution the objective of joining the European Union.
Hundreds of officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Education and Justice signed open letters on Friday denouncing the freeze on talks with the EU as unconstitutional. Several private universities have announced the suspension of classes, and business organizations have asked the government to review its decision.
The Georgian Dream party, which won nearly 54 percent of the vote in October elections that the opposition says was rigged, announced on Thursday that it was suspending talks citing “blackmail” by the EU to Georgia.
The relationship with the West continues to deteriorate
The decision comes at the end of several months of deteriorating relations between Georgia and the West, which has accused the government in Tbilisi of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies.
This year, Georgian Dream pushed for laws targeting so-called “foreign agents” as well as LGBT rights, which critics say are Russian-inspired.
The party controlled by its founder, billionaire and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, says it still wants EU membership and that the passed laws are needed to protect traditional Georgian values.
The Georgian dream is in hostile relations with the country’s president, the pro-European Salome Zurabishvili. In a post on X last night, he invoked the case of Romania as an example of Russian interventionism.
“Georgia, Romania!!! Is it enough for Western leaders to decipher Russia’s strategy against Europe: armed war in Ukraine, “electoral war” in Tbilisi and Bucharest?!?,” wrote Zurabishvili.
