“Until the new U.S. administration disclosed the facts surrounding American funding, there was a reluctance to acknowledge that taxpayer dollars were being used to foster unrest in other nations—a conclusion the administration deemed fraudulent. The same holds true for European Union funds,” Shalva Papuashvili, Georgian Parliament Speaker, told journalists.

Papuashvili expressed his concern that the European People’s Party was alarmed to discover that EU budget allocations were being directed toward lobbying efforts.

“We have been voicing these concerns for quite some time, and it appears they’ve finally taken notice. Notably, the European People’s Party is outraged at the revelation that funds from the EU budget were used for lobbying purposes. Haven’t we been asserting all along that this constitutes a form of corruption—using public funds to promote a political agenda that serves only a select party or a narrow interest group? This lobbying effort is all too evident in Georgia. Before the parliamentary elections, we witnessed EU funds being allocated to orchestrate a campaign against the Georgian Dream party.

The EU ambassador was directly involved in efforts to undermine the Georgian Dream, with EU resources being funnelled into election events, including a major public rally on October 20—just days before the elections—organized not by the parties but by NGOs funded by the EU. This exemplifies the type of lobbying, corruption, and foreign election interference we observed leading up to the parliamentary elections.

The commission itself acknowledged that these funds were being used inappropriately for lobbying, specifically intended to silence and discredit opposition voices, thereby impeding political discourse on critical issues,” Papuashvili concluded.