“We are all friends of Georgia. We have two missions. The first mission is to express our solidarity with the people demonstrating on the streets peacefully for our European values. The second mission is to listen to each other,” stated Michael Roth, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, during his visit to Tbilisi.

Roth expressed surprise and disappointment that the delegation of parliamentarians of the EU countries was unable to meet with the Georgian government.

“We are here as friends, as allies of Georgia. We have two missions. The first mission is to express our solidarity with the people demonstrating on the streets peacefully for our European values. The European Union is first and foremost a union of values and not just a single market. Freedom, democracy, and the rule of law are obligations for all of us. That’s why we are so grateful to all these committed Europeans who raise their voices, who are visible on the street, and to make clear that Georgia belongs to us.

The second mission is to listen to each other. We want, we wanted to talk to your government. We wanted to talk to representatives of the ruling party. We were talking with the opposition. With representatives of civil society. Very diverse. But we were a bit speechless that such a delegation of senior parliamentarians didn’t have the opportunity to meet your government because your government is too busy. We just had the privilege to meet our counterpart, the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in your Parliament. But we couldn’t meet in the Parliament, we met in the headquarters of the Georgian Dream. That was also a bit irritating for us,” Roth said.

Additionally, Roth noted that the delegation members are disappointed that the Georgian Parliament passed the law.

“The parliament passed the foreign agent law today. We are very disappointed as friends of Georgia because we are fighting for Georgia on its long and bumpy road towards the European Union.

We were extremely committed to granting Georgia the candidate status last year, and it was not so easy because this was not a gift to the government that was giving. More or less an encouragement to civil society, because be proud of your civil society. Civil society is not an enemy, and I’ve never seen a society which is more committed to Europe and to European values like the Georgian one. Be proud of it. These people are not enemies, they are partners. I expect that your ruling party built bridges to society to overcome this polarization in your society, to calm down emotions,” he added.