Speaker: EU should decide whether to distance itself from insults against Georgia’s majority or become complicit

“The person who insults and calls the majority of Georgia’s population ‘slaves’ is being funded with EU money. I no longer know what research or analysis is needed. It is clear that we are dealing with an appalling situation,” Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said.

Papuashvili was asked ”whether it was acceptable that musician Kordz who had insulted thousands of Georgian Dream voters, was invited to the festival as part of the Creative Compass Georgia project, an EU-funded, four-year initiative implemented with co-financing from the Goethe-Institut Georgia.”

According to the Parliament Speaker, the EU should decide whether to distance itself from or become complicit in insulting the majority of Georgia’s population.

“On the one hand, when there is a person who, because of political preferences, insults more than half of Georgia’s population, and when an event is organized by the Gori Cultural Center, which, based on political preferences, calls more than half of Georgia’s population ‘slaves’ — when EU money is being spent on someone who insults the majority of Georgia’s population and on someone who calls them slaves, I no longer know what research or analysis is needed.

It is clear that we are dealing with an appalling situation that requires a decision. The European Union must decide: either it becomes complicit in insulting and calling the majority of the Georgian people ‘slaves,’ or it distances itself from this behavior.

This behavior is extremism, fascism, when you single people out based on their political views and call them slaves, treating them as beings without rights, as if they are not human beings, while you, as the European Union, are financially involved in this.

Such a Europe existed a hundred years ago. Either those who finance the authors of fascist slogans and ideologies share the values of Europe from a century ago, or they will distance themselves from this event and these individuals.

So, we are waiting for a response and action from the European Union and those donor organizations involved in this event,” Papuashvili said.