Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said the discussion with all parliamentary stakeholders and civil society representatives that on Monday reviewed work for the fulfilment of the conditions outlined for the country to open European Union accession talks had been “very practical”. 

Papuashvili noted there were matters “not within the remit” of the Parliament, but added the meeting discussed “how the Parliament should pay attention to these topics”.

“[These include] the alignment of foreign policy with the policy of the European Union. Of course, we concentrated more on the matters that are within the remit of the Parliament”, he said.  

The meeting reviewed the procedure for staffing the Central Election Commission, as well as improving the legislation of the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Investigative Service, and judicial reform. There is a conclusion of the Venice Commission on all three matters. Yesterday we discussed what the opposition thinks are the more important issues”, he continued. 

Papuashvili added the discussion had been organised “in such a way that the majority did not talk about what solutions it sees, we were interested in the ideas of the opposition”, and further pointed out another meeting in the same format would be held in two weeks.

The European Commission recommended the European Council in November to grant Georgia the EU membership candidate status with the conditions that range from efforts to combat disinformation and foreign information manipulation about the EU and its values, to further alignment of the country’s foreign and security policies with the bloc, to reforms in the judiciary, electoral and human rights areas.

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