I urge the Georgian authorities: keep in mind not only the political points you can gain by keeping him in prison but also the points you are losing because we have to have a debate today about a political prisoner instead of, for instance, the candidate status, MEP Markéta Gregorová said during the debate at the European Parliament regarding the situation of Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday.

“There are far too many challenges ahead of Georgia. The Commission will be now evaluating the 12-point recommendations and how the Georgian authorities were able to fulfil them. At the end of the road, there might even be a candidate status waiting for them.

Yet we already know that there are some persisting issues. Although we all appreciate a tense at legislation tackling oligarchization, we also hear varying messages from Georgian authorities regarding which personas in the country will be affected by the legislation, and which suggests that the legislation won’t really solve the problem,” Markéta Gregorová declared.

She went on: “And other issues, of course, the polarization of the political spectrum and consequently society. I have no signals of improvement, maybe even on the contrary, the longer there is in fighting, the more it’s being fueled by various disinformation and manipulation.

Why am I talking about it now? Because these are the challenges all of us in this house want to focus on and want to keep focusing on. However, the case of Mikheil Saakashvili is so overwhelming that we cannot look away. It represents everything we are talking about when we talk about problems and reforms, mistrust in the judiciary, polarization, and disinformation. There is no big conspiracy, such as that we are being paid by UNM or coerced by Saakashvili. Yes. I’ve heard that. That is nonsense.

We care. Because we have to care, because there is a highly politicized case, and the person is dying in prison.

So I urge the Georgian authorities to keep in mind not only the political points you can gain by keeping him in prison but also the points you are losing because we have to have a debate today about a political prisoner instead of, for instance, the candidate status,” MEP Gregorová stated.