In a continuation of Georgian Dream’s downplaying of the EU’s potential revocation of its visa liberalisation act with Georgia, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze said that the country’s ‘state and national interests cannot be traded for visa liberalisation’.
Kaladze, who also serves as the ruling party’s secretary general, made the remarks on Monday.
He slammed ‘European bureaucrats for the slanderous statements’ they had been making about Georgian Dream’s anti-Western trajectory and policies.
‘It is as if they do not sleep day and night thinking about the Georgian people and Georgia. This is an absolutely fake attitude’, Kaladze said.
Kaladze’s statements came in response to speculation that the EU Commission would suspend the visa liberalisation act with Georgia, citing ‘serious breaches of fundamental rights and freedoms by Georgia’.
Outrage over the potential suspension of the act was triggered by a letter from the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs addressed to Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili in mid-July.
It urged Tbilisi to provide the commission with an update on the implementation of recommendations issued by Brussels in December 2024 by the end of August, and, ‘if not already done, to take appropriate measures to address the issues raised in all commission recommendations’.
According to the letter, the commission will assess Georgia’s compliance with the recommendations in the context of the next visa suspension mechanism report.
‘Based on this assessment, in case of persisting non-compliance, the commission could take appropriate measures on the basis of the article 8 of the revised visa regulation, specifically activating the visa suspension mechanism’.
The letter noted that Georgia’s inaction regarding the recommendations led to the suspension of visa exemption for diplomatic and service passport holders in January 2025.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
