Ruling party MP Gorduladze: EU needs Georgia more than Georgia needs EU

The European Union needs Georgia more than Georgia needs the EU, Archil Gorduladze, chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Legal Issues Committee, has said, criticising the bloc’s “unfair treatment” of Georgia.

Speaking on Georgia’s First Channel programme Dgis Tema (Topic of the Day), Gorduladze was asked whether Georgia’s exclusion from the EU Enlargement Forum would harm the country’s European prospects. He compared the situation to Georgia not being invited to meetings involving Black Sea countries, including discussions on the Middle Corridor.

“When they tell us that Georgia is important to them, but that they find the decision of more than 1.12 million voters unacceptable, they are directly insulting those people,” Gorduladze said.

He criticised European Parliament member Rasa Juknevičienė, accusing her of referring to Georgian voters in derogatory terms. He also questioned the legitimacy of European Parliament resolutions, claiming that some were supported by lawmakers who had not read them.

Gorduladze distinguished between “the positions of EU bureaucrats and those of individual member states.”

 He pointed to a recent visit by Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili and other lawmakers to several European countries, arguing that their approach to Georgia differed from that of EU officials.

“Georgia is no less a country than anyone else,” Gorduladze said, adding that the country would engage with its partners on equal terms rather than seeking favours.

“We are not asking anyone for anything. We are neither on our knees nor holding out our hands, asking for charity. On the contrary, we speak to everyone as equals,” he said.

Gorduladze argued that maintaining stable relations with Georgia should be in the EU’s own interest, citing political and economic challenges facing several EU member states.

“If they are capable of making pragmatic decisions, and if the forces behind them allow them to do so, they should first and foremost see the benefit of maintaining stable relations with Georgia,” he said.