During the European Parliament debate on 13 November, MEPs discussed the outcome of Georgia’s parliamentary elections. The political groups agreed to change the plenary agenda to add the issue shortly before the Parliament’s session. The debate precedes the adoption of a resolution on the issue, which will be put to a vote during the EU Parliament plenary session on November 25-28.

András László, a member of the European Parliament: “I was an international observer in Georgian elections and I am totally appalled about what happened. Georgia held free and fair elections, everyone who was there knew this. NGO observers told me they trust the integrity of the elections, that’s what opposition party observers told me, that’s what voters told me and I talked to several of them in different voting stations. Minor provocations and incidents took place at some voting stations but nothing that couldn’t happen anywhere else. The vote difference in favour of the Georgian Dream is more than 300 000 votes, fraud claims not even close to match the massive victory of the Georgian Dream and then came politicians from EU countries who tried to destabilise Georgia and fuel protests. Georgians made a democratic choice. Even if many don’t like it in the EU, we should respect their choice. The Georgian Prime Minister clearly said in his 1st statement after the elections that continuing the EU accession talks still remains a priority. We need to continue our partnership and accession talks with the new government”.

Rasa Juknevičienė, member of the European Parliament: “The elections in Georgia were not democratic. We can’t recognize them. The Georgian Dream has not won. We need to call for an independent international investigation. Georgia’s EU candidate status has already been frozen, it will remain so. We will need to reassess if Georgia remains eligible for the visa-free status. We can no longer justify bilateral assistance to Georgian state institutions. I say all of this with sadness. Georgian people deserve better. They support the pro-European path and the EU supports them. From now on, the EU must speak very clearly to both: the Georgian society and the Georgian Dream that has stolen the elections from them. EU is not competitive with an oligarchic system”.

Danilo Della Valle, member of the European Parliament: “We had the elections in October in Georgia. According to the official results, Georgian Dream has got 54% and claimed a victory. The president of Georgia didn’t recognize the results and announced the cases of fraud. The inquiry was launched into the number of cases of electoral fraud. The OSCE published its own report on the state of democratic debate in Georgia. They do not confirm any accusations of large-scale fraud as promoted by the opposition. But now, nevertheless, we are threatening them with freezing their accession process simply because the majority in this parliament and the commission do not like the winners. At the same time, Moldova, a friend of the West, by a very narrow margin and both sides accused the other of fraud but that has been claimed as a major victory for democracy. It seems [like] a double standard and hypocrisy”.