“Brussels has its own ambassador, and the EU ambassador is perfectly capable of speaking for himself about what is and is not required for EU membership. The German Ambassador should remain within the remit assigned to him as Germany’s representative and refrain from presuming to speak in the name of Europe, in the name of the European Union,” declared Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, at a briefing held in parliament.

In his view, Peter Fischer seems to believe that the capital of the European Union is Berlin, rather than Brussels.

“I do not know what Mr Peter’s conception of things is, if he believes Berlin is the EU, the capital of Europe, those ideas belong to a rather different era. The capital of the European Union is Brussels. Brussels has its own ambassador, and the EU ambassador is perfectly capable of speaking for himself about what is and is not required for EU membership. The German Ambassador should remain within the remit assigned to him as Germany’s representative and refrain from assuming the authority to speak in the name of Europe, in the name of the European Union. This, once again, demonstrates that he not only damages relations with Germany but also encroaches on the authority of other ambassadors, including the EU ambassador, as though the EU ambassador were somehow under his guardianship and incapable of saying what needs to be said.

I do not believe that Ambassador Herczyński has any difficulty articulating what EU policy actually is. This individual keeps inserting himself — at one point, he weighed in on a letter I had written to Herczyński, though I had not written to him; I had written to Herczyński. Herczyński gave whatever answer he gave. Then this individual stepped forward and began to comment on it. After the Prime Minister wrote to the EU leadership, this individual stepped forward once more to comment on the matter. Please confirm whether Berlin is the capital of the European Union and whether that is the historical reality we are living in.

This individual neither knows his own lane nor understands anyone else’s. We offered him well-meaning advice: for months, in various forms, we urged him to act within the bounds of the Vienna Convention and to avoid offending both the host nation and its government. This man heeded none of it. He was recalled to Germany, and the German Foreign Ministry gave us assurances that upon his return, there would be none of the aggressive rhetoric and attacks we had grown accustomed to from him. Regrettably, that assurance was also broken. The one thing that gives us hope is that only a matter of days remain of his ambassadorship in Georgia, and with that, this sorry chapter in Georgian-German relations will, one hopes, be firmly closed,” Papuashvili declared.