Georgian Parliament official: Georgia will not be drawn into ideological confrontation between Brussels and Washington

Levan Makhashvili, Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s European Integration Committee, on Tuesday responded to remarks by European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, saying that Brussels’ call for EU candidate countries to refrain from engaging with the United States’ ruling political movement, MAGA, is harmful to Georgia.

In his remarks, Makhashvili said Georgia’s foreign policy would be determined exclusively in Tbilisi and based on the country’s national interests, adding that Georgia had no intention of becoming involved in an ideological confrontation between others.

“According to recent opinion polls, public support for a number of European leaders is at historic lows. There is a systemic deficit of public trust in the leaders of major European countries. Voters in these countries are demanding affordable living, border control, public order, energy security, decent jobs and peace. Instead, they often receive endless geopolitical mobilisation, a war agenda, the redirection of budgets toward military priorities, and the sense that decisions are being made not in their capitals but in informal backrooms”, the official said.

He stressed that when visible governments answer to invisible centres, when a country becomes an instrument of permanent conflict, when diplomacy is replaced by slogans, and when criticism is branded as “being on the wrong side”, legitimacy begins to collapse and voter alienation grows.

“Europe is a civilisational choice for us, but being European does not mean blindly imitating the mistakes that French, German or British voters are now judging through the polls. These ratings reflect the consequences of misguided policies pursued by the political elites of these countries. They are a clear message from the people that peace, sovereignty and human well-being are not mutually exclusive, and those who sacrifice one for another first lose public trust and then their political future”, Makhashvili noted.

“I would also like to respond to European Commissioner Marta Kos’s statement that countries aspiring to join the European Union should not maintain relations with the so-called MAGA movement in the United States. In doing so, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement places the ruling political force of the United States in the same category as Russia, referring to it as an ‘adversary’ and an ‘enemy’ in the enlargement process”, he continued.

The official added that the statement was unacceptable and directly harmful to Georgia.

“It is precisely such misguided decisions that have brought Brussels to where it is today. Equating the two is a strategic political mistake by Brussels: when partnerships are no longer measured by interests but by ideological purity, sooner or later even an ally can be declared an enemy. This has already happened. A quiet internal geopolitical confrontation is already unfolding across the transatlantic space - in trade, technology, spheres of influence and even among candidate countries”, Makhashvili said.

“Georgia cannot afford to get drawn into an ideological war between Brussels and Washington. Those who tell us that the path to the European Union requires cutting ties with MAGA are asking us to turn our own security into a subject of someone else’s domestic ideological confrontation. This call is misguided because it also exposes Brussels’ weakness rather than its strength”, he added.

Makhashvili highlighted that if the European project was so fragile that the choice of American voters could undermine it, the problem lay not with MAGA but with Brussels and the misguided policies that had shifted Europe from interests toward ideology.

“Georgia’s position is clear: Georgia will make no concessions to radical forces for whom destabilisation is a programme, peace is a problem, and [Russian-occupied] Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali regions are merely ‘traumatic memories’ to be erased”, he said.

“Georgia’s foreign policy will be decided in Tbilisi, not in the office of any commissioner, and it will be determined solely on the basis of the interests of the Georgian state and its people”, Makhashvili concluded.