During his speech at the 47th plenary session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Giorgi Tkemaladze, chairman of the Tbilisi City Council and vice-president of the National Association of Local Self-Governments, reaffirmed Georgia’s commitment to bilateral cooperation to advance human rights and European democratic values at the local level.

Tkemaladze emphasized that the partnership with the Congress has been mutually beneficial, noting the importance of continuing and expanding this collaboration.

However, Tkemaladze also expressed concerns about the timing and content of the declaration proposed by the Congress ahead of Georgia’s parliamentary elections. He pointed out that the document contains factual inaccuracies and warned that adopting such a text could undermine the objectivity of the Congress.

“As we speak of democracy in Georgia, we would like to emphasize breakthrough achievements supported by Georgian authorities, be it a candidate country status or EU membership. თhese achievements have reiterated support from the citizens and brought majority mandates for governing party through the years. We highly value our fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation with the Congress that enabled Georgia to grow its local democracy dramatically throughout recent years. So this is with great pleasure that we take new opportunities to cooperate with the Congress as well as to go ahead with the already established ones.

As a monitoring mission to Georgia explained in due course, we believe the mission will ensure an opportunity for making unbiased assessments in this light today. We are consent that the adoption of the proposed declaration texts, including factual inaccuracies, right before the scheduled parliamentary election may encourage polarization in Georgian society, and put at stake the peaceful pre-election process. We believe such unfavourable development don’t comply with the interest of the Congress. But rather, we will like to focus on the merits of our cooperation and confirm our readiness to go ahead with our synergy and favour to promoting human rights in the European democracy, locally in Georgia,” he declared.