Parliament Speaker: Those who sought to bring us down have brought themselves down straight into penal institution

“They give us no peace from without; they want to turn this country upside down and bring back the ideology of the United National Movement. They want puppets in power,” declared Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament.

In his view, Georgia is being pushed towards renouncing its own territories and sovereignty as the price of EU membership.

“We have been watching this for fourteen years already; they give us no peace from without. Saakashvili is a fine example of this. They give us no peace from without; they want to turn this country upside down and restore the ideology of the United National Movement. They want puppets in power. You heard Mr Peter’s [Fischer] statement that Georgia has strayed from the path of Ukraine and Moldova. I would remind you that this is the path along which Ukraine is today being told that if it wishes to join the EU, what is required is a peace agreement with Russia, one that will entail the ceding of territories. The President of Moldova has stated that the most viable path to EU membership is the dissolution of Moldova as a sovereign state and its absorption as a region of another country. That, in truth, is what they were nudging us towards as well.

What they actually want is to reconcile us to the idea that if we wish to see a European perspective, we must renounce our territories, come to see them as a burden, cast off that burden, and only then will the road to the EU open before us. And secondly, that we renounce our sovereignty, that we adopt whatever laws we are told to adopt, not on account of standards, but to suit their political tastes, and that we bring to such an inglorious end the centuries-long struggle for independence that has defined us. That is precisely the direction in which they are pushing us, towards an inglorious membership of the European Union,” declared Papuashvili.

The Parliament Speaker further remarked that the only prospect awaiting anyone who attempts to overthrow the government is a prison cell.

“Those who sought to bring us down have, as we can see, brought themselves down, straight into a penal institution. The only prospect for any such attempt is that everyone who takes up arms against Georgia will find themselves in a penitentiary,” declared Shalva Papuashvili.