Speaker Papuashvili: European Commission uses “Soviet methods” against Georgia, acting in an un-European way

“Sadly, we are seeing a very immature international policy from the European Commission, including towards candidate countries, and not only towards Georgia. Until the Commission changes this immature policy, it is hard to imagine it taking any constructive steps,” Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, told journalists.

Speaker Papuashvili was asked for his views on the EU’s next enlargement report.

He said the Georgian government is ready for dialogue with the EU and has said so many times.

“We have said many times that we are sitting at the dialogue table with the EU and waiting for EU representatives to sit down at it. We see them circling the table and choosing confrontation instead of dialogue. This is the destruction of European values and is leading Europe towards a civilisational abyss. When the Commission chooses confrontation and escalation over dialogue as its primary approach to Georgia and other nations, it utterly abandons the core tenets of European values.

For our part, we are trying to behave in a civilised, European way. Unfortunately, they continue to rely on Soviet methods. This is to be expected, since the Commission’s hierarchy includes figures who may have left the Soviet Union behind, but have clearly kept their Soviet habits. They have distanced themselves from much that was Soviet, but they appear to have brought with them the methods the Soviet Union used against small countries. Now, instead of dialogue, we are seeing Soviet methods from the European Commission towards Georgia: confrontation, escalation, pressure and coercion. We remain European; the European Commission is behaving in an un-European way,” Papuashvili said.