Georgian Parliament official: EU accession should not be used as instrument of pressure

Maia Bitadze, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Environment Protection and Natural Resources Committee, on Wednesday criticised what she described as the European Union’s use of accession-related mechanisms as tools of political pressure.

In her remarks with Imedi TV, Bitadze commented on EU member states’ decision to support the suspension of visa liberalisation for holders of Georgian diplomatic passports.

“Brussels still fails to understand that visa liberalisation must not be instrumentalised or used as a tool of blackmail, including against holders of official and especially diplomatic passports - individuals who, particularly in this very difficult geopolitical situation, stand guard over our country’s security and sovereignty”, she said.

She further noted that visa liberalisation should not be used as leverage or a political instrument, particularly against diplomatic passport holders who represent Georgia’s interests abroad.

“Unfortunately, this once again exposes the double standard in Brussels’ approach: on the one hand, positive assessments of Georgia by EU institutions across all indicators, where we outperform all candidate countries, negotiating states, and even some EU member states; and on the other hand, at the level of political statements and over the past two years, the instrumentalisation of visa liberalisation as a means of pressure”, she noted.

Bitadze concluded that transforming EU accession into a tool for exerting leverage on sovereign nations is detrimental not only to countries like Georgia but ultimately harms the European Union itself.

“Therefore, it is very unfortunate that today we are talking about the European Union turning EU accession into an instrument of pressure on countries, which is very bad for the European Union itself”, she concluded.