Georgia's Ruling Party's Position Blocking Country's Way To EU - President

TBILISI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st March, 2023) Georgia's governing party is deliberately blocking the country's path to the European Union, President Salome Zourabichvili said during her annual address to the parliament on Friday.

"However you tried to convince our citizens that Europe goes against our national interests and values, you will fail. The Georgian people have known for more than a century what Europe is and why we need it, and that European values are in perfect harmony with the Georgian values," she said while addressing members of the Georgian Dream party, who hold the majority of seats, with Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Chairman of Parliament Shalva Papuashvili also belonging to that party.

She also said that the Georgian people had gone out on the streets three times to proclaim their wish to "be part of Europe, not Russia" and that it happened "not because of any political parties' call, not under any foreign pressure, not for money, not for coup d'etat, not for plots, but for their European future.

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The anti-European rhetoric of the governing party goes against the will of the people and the people's mandate, she added.

"Instead of strengthening the governmental institutions as a sign of democracy, the one-party system and its influence have been gaining ground," she said, referring to the heatedly disputed foreign agent registration bill proposed by Georgian Dream, and the judicial reform, which, in her opinion, has come to a deadlock.

All those issues resulted in Georgia's failing to be granted EU candidate status in June 2022, she concluded.