In what he described as a “hostile environment,” Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili, announced that the country’s official parliamentary delegation will not participate in future Euronest Parliamentary Assembly sessions until there is a “readiness for dialogue.”

“I have already made a statement to this effect,” Papuashvili told journalists, explaining that certain members of the European Parliament were displaying condescending and post-Soviet attitudes toward Georgia.

“We see that post-Soviet individuals are speaking to us in the name of Europe,” Papuashvili said. “Rasa Juknevičienė, Gorbachev’s comrade, and Sergey Lagodinsky, who was born and raised in Astrakhan but is now presented to us as a German MP, are addressing us on behalf of Europe.”

The Speaker went on to question their authority to lecture Georgia on European values:

“You can take a person out of the Soviet Union, but you cannot take the Soviet Union out of the person. These are precisely the individuals who still view Georgia in a Soviet manner and believe the Georgian people are to be subjugated by them. Therefore, we will not take lessons on being European from Gorbachev’s comrade, Rasa Juknevičienė, or from Sergey Lagodinsky, born and raised in Astrakhan.”

Papuashvili reiterated his position on November 1, stating that Georgia’s decision followed “hostile approaches from certain forces in the European Parliament.” He emphasized that it was “categorically unacceptable” for Euronest to ignore the will of the Georgian people or undermine the country’s democratic institutions and elections based on external interpretations.

The comments came after the Parliamentary Assembly of Euronest adopted a resolution addressing Georgia, noting that recent political developments in the country indicated signs of democratic backsliding.