Riot police used tear gas in various parts of Georgia at dawn on Friday to disperse demonstrators who took to the streets to protest the government’s decision to postpone the start of the country’s accession process until 2028 to the European Union, according to what the Agency reports. France-Presse correspondents reported it.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, and other cities across the country to protest Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s decision to postpone the start of European Union accession negotiations until 2028.
Georgia was granted candidate state status for membership of the Union in December 2023.
Kobakhidze’s government took this decision in response to what its president considered to be “blackmail” practiced by Brussels against the backdrop of the political crisis that his country has been experiencing since the legislative elections at the end of October.
This position of the government follows a resolution of the European Parliament published on Thursday, in which it condemned these elections, considering that they “did not respect international standards”, and therefore called for “their reorganization within a year”.
These elections resulted in the victory of the “Georgian Dream” party, in power since 2012, and which the opposition accuses of pursuing an authoritarian and pro-Russian policy.
The pro-Western opposition as well as President Salomé Zurabishvili rejected the election results.
The president of the anti-Georgian Dream party filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court to annul the results, deeming the new parliament “unconstitutional”.
On Thursday, the European Parliament called on the European Union to impose “personal sanctions” on Georgian leaders, including Prime Minister Kobakhidze, the mayor of Tbilisi, the secretary general of the Georgian Dream party Kakha Kaladze and Parliament Speaker Shalva Babuashvili. .
The European Parliament also expressed its support for President Zurabishvili, welcoming her measures to “bring the country back to the democratic path”.
In May, Georgia saw protests against the “foreign influence” law modeled after a Russian law regarding “foreign agents.” In response to the adoption of this law, Brussels froze Georgia’s accession process to the European Union, while the United States imposed it. sanctions against dozens of Georgian officials accused of having carried out “violent repression” against demonstrators.