“What we see is another attempt to derail the attention from the facts. And we are now used to this disinformation propaganda by the authorities,” said Anitta Hipper, Lead European Spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs and Security at the press conference.

Anitta Hipper responded to the question regarding the letter of the EU Ambassador to Georgia, Paweł Herczyński.

The question of a reporter was the following: “Today, members of the Georgian Dream party and pro-government actors have been reporting since morning that they have obtained a so-called scandalous letter which states that the EU itself decided to suspend Georgia’s accession process five months before Kobakhidze publicly announced it in November last year.

However, I saw the letter, which mirrors the public statement that came from the European Council back on June 27, 2024, so it clearly underlines the misalignments of the actions made by the Georgian government during that time. So, what is your take on it?”

“What we see is another attempt to derail the attention from the facts. And we are now used by now with this disinformation propaganda by the authorities. So, let’s just get the facts straight and you, as a very serious journalist, you have already done your job and you have done cross-checked and fact-checked the information, which is indeed correct. Already in June of 2024, we have had the European Council conclusions basically reiterating once more the democratic backsliding and also ensuring that we have a first wake-up call to the Georgia authorities to reverse their course.

We have had in place the same Georgian Dream government. We have had a majority of the same party in parliament throughout, and instead of having a reversal of these destructive actions for the democracy, we have only seen how these actions intensify in terms of making sure that the opposition is oppressed, that the journalists are jailed and peaceful protesters are attacked.

So, as a matter of fact, we had the June 2024 European Council conclusions. We have had them also in October, in December 2024, and now what we have seen just this week with the enlargement report. The result of all these actions is that Georgia is now a candidate country just in name,” she said.

Rustavi 2 TV Company released the letter of EU Ambassador to Georgia Paweł Herczyński, which, according to the TV company, confirms that the EU, back on June 27, 2024, the EU itself decided to suspend Georgia’s accession process five months before Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze publicly announced it in November last year.