Papuashvili says Ukraine and Moldova’s EU integration involves ceding territories, statehood

Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has stated that Georgia will never follow Ukraine and Moldova’s integration path, which he claimed implied ‘ceding territories’ and ‘abolition of the state’.

Papuashvili made the remarks on Wednesday while referring to comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Ukraine’s EU integration, as well as remarks by Moldovan President Maia Sandu on the prospects of unification between Moldova and Romania.

‘When Ukraine and Moldova are used as examples, I want to tell everyone in the EU, in Brussels, and their satellites in Georgia that the Ukrainian and Moldovan path to European integration is not the Georgian path’, Papuashvili said.

‘Georgia will never follow the path of Ukraine and Moldova, which implies EU membership through the ceding of territories and the abolition of the state’.

According to Papuashvili, ‘if EU membership is an end in itself, it means you must sacrifice your territorial sovereignty and state sovereignty’.

‘In that sense, EU membership is not our end goal if it requires us to give up territories, sovereignty, identity, and the right to determine our own policies’, he added, claiming that such conditions were being imposed on Kyiv and Chișinău by Brussels, and that ‘they themselves acknowledge that these conditions exist’.

With regards to Ukraine, Papuashvili cited comments by Merz made on Monday during a meeting with students in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Merz suggested that, as part of a future peace deal with Russia, Ukraine may have to accept that some of its territory remains outside its control, linking such concessions to the country’s prospects for EU membership.

‘At some point, Ukraine will sign a ceasefire agreement; at some point, hopefully, a peace treaty with Russia. Then it may ​be that part of Ukraine’s territory is no longer Ukrainian’, Merz ​said, according to Reuters.

‘If President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyi wants to communicate this to his ​own population and gain a majority for it, and he needs to hold ​a referendum on it, then he must at the same time tell the people: “I have opened the way to Europe for you” ’ Merz continued.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the prospect of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.

For Moldova, Papuashvili apparently referred to remarks made by President Sandu in an interview with the French Le Monde on Wednesday, where Sandu raised the possibility of unifying her country with Romania to speed up its EU integration. However, she emphasised that such a decision should be supported by Moldovans themselves.

Moldova has at many times in history been united with Romania, including as recently as 1940, before the Soviet Union annexed what is now modern-day Moldova. The two countries also share a common language, Romanian.

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has previously criticised Sandu for saying in January that she would support the unification of the two countries.

In recent years, Georgia’s relations have significantly deteriorated with both Moldova and Ukraine, as well as with Germany and other EU member states.

The country’s democratic backsliding and increasing pressure by the Georgian Dream government on domestic critics have been accompanied by increasingly harsh rhetoric toward international actors who criticise Tbilisi’s policies.

Georgian Dream emphasises Georgia’s sovereignty in its messaging, claiming it was defending it, while arguing that Western critics were attempting to undermine it.