“Georgia’s Prime Minister has, with a single short video address, put an end to the speculative campaign on migration being waged in Georgia, with distinctly fascist undertones, by the so-called pro-European forces,” said Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili.

Among those responsible for the scaremongering, he noted, are parties that are members of ALDE and similar European political groupings.

“I have in mind Lelo and others who, quite apart from having harboured a terrorist within their own ranks, are engaged in fascist-style campaigning and bandying about terminology such as ‘Arabisation’ and the like. Plain statistics have now laid bare the truth of the matter.

According to the preliminary data from the latest census, Georgia’s population stands at 3,900,000, of whom only approximately 250,000, or 6.5 per cent, are foreign nationals. Of those, some 220,000 are either Georgian citizens holding foreign nationality, or foreigners from post-Soviet states, the United States, or Israel. The reality is that out of 250,000 foreign nationals, 220,000 are either Georgians with foreign passports, or citizens of post-Soviet countries, America, or Israel.

As for the share from those countries to which the so-called pro-European forces so shamelessly appeal when speaking about migration, Iran, Türkiye, and similar neighbouring states, the combined total amounts to just 0.7 per cent of Georgia’s entire population. This puts paid, once again, to the speculation and lifts the veil on what the so-called pro-European forces in Georgia are actually doing: attempting to harm our country through precisely this kind of scaremongering,” said Shalva Papuashvili.

Georgia’s Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, issued a video address in which he stated that “against the backdrop of events unfolding in Europe, the public’s concern and interest in the question of migration is entirely to be welcomed, as it is the wish of every patriot that Georgia should uphold and preserve its national and religious identity.”