Parliament official claims “main” purpose of European Parliament’s resolution on Georgia is to raise “boiling point” of political tensions, controversy in country

Irakli Kadagishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules, on Friday claimed the “main” purpose of the European Parliament’s resolution against the domestic bill on transparency was to raise the “boiling point” of political tensions and controversy in the country.

Kadagishvili’s remarks followed after the European Parliament on Thursday adopted a non-binding resolution on Georgia, which stated that EU accession talks with Georgia should not be opened until the bill on the transparency of foreign influence was withdrawn.

In his remarks, Kadagishvili noted that the suspension of visa liberalisation had nothing to do with the transparency bill.

“As for whether the suspension of visa liberalisation is realistic or not. This is not realistic and has nothing to do with this legislation. The pretext and reason for establishing and suspending visa liberalisation can only be those criteria that made the visa free travel possible. All those criteria are fulfilled by Georgia”, he concluded.

The resolution of the European Parliament against the transparency bill on Thursday called on the European Commission to promptly assess the impact of Georgia's planned bill on Georgia’s continuous fulfilment of the visa liberalisation benchmarks, in particular the fundamental rights benchmark, a crucial component of the EU visa liberalisation policy.