Georgian Parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili met representatives of the parliamentary opposition. At the meeting, they discussed the recommendation of the European Commission, which envisages changes to the election code.

“We now have a process that involves taking into account the recommendations of the European Council. If we want Georgia to get candidate status, our goal is to meet these recommendations. The recommendations concern the analysis of the existing conclusions of the OSCE/ ODIHR and the Venice Commission and, if there is anything left, its consideration in the election code,” said Shalva Papuashvili.

According to the chairman of the parliament, the government has a position regarding the electoral threshold and no decision is planned in this regard this year.

Shalva Papuashvili believes that two issues should be distinguished from each other, the recommendations of the European Union and their satisfaction. And discussion of other issues, including the election threshold, should be done in a different format.

“As for the electoral threshold, this is a separate issue that has nothing to do with the 12 recommendations, and everyone agrees on this, including today we had a conversation with the ambassadors of the EU member states, and the answer here is clear that this is not an issue seen from the perspective of the European Union, which should be resolved. or be resolved in any way. This is another matter. That’s why I told my colleagues that we should focus on our goal, if our goal now is to get the status of a candidate in terms of relations with the European Union, we should follow this issue. As for other goals and interests, there can be many of them.

Girchi has opinions about the National Bank, there are other issues, but it is not fair to our population and the European future of our country, that we put other interests and goals in this basket, which is called moving forward on the path of the European Union. We have to separate two issues from each other, the recommendations of the European Union, their satisfaction, and this is a clear plan that we must follow, as for other issues, we must agree that these are other issues, and I think we all agree on this, that this is not an issue of the European Union and it should be a matter of discussion in another format. We have stated our position regarding the barrier. We do not plan making a decision on this issue this year,” said Shalva Papuashvili.