The ruling Georgian Dream party is leaving the Party of European Socialists (PES) without waiting for its expulsion. And this means that the Georgian Dream will officially no longer have an allied political force in the European Parliament.
At a special briefing, Georgian Dream chairman Irakli Kobakhidze said that the decision to leave the party was taken collectively at a meeting of the political council.
“Our conservative political platform was criticized by the leadership of the PES, of which Georgian Dream is an observer member. Moreover, there were threats from their side to reconsider cooperation, which was not preceded by communication. Such attitudes are fundamentally unacceptable to us. Our party has been an observer member of the PES since 2015. Unfortunately, from 2015 to the present, the Party of European Socialists has not made a single loud statement in support of the Georgian Dream, but has regularly joined political campaigns in support of the radical opposition,” Kobakhidze said.
He also noted that last and this year, several dozen MEPs from the Party of European Socialists supported “absurd resolutions” that demanded that the European Parliament impose sanctions on the party’s founder Bidzina Ivanishvili and release “two criminals”, Mikheil Saakashvili and Nika Gvaramia, and stop criminal prosecution against the “other criminal”, David Kezerashvili. According to Kobakhidze, under such conditions the membership of Georgian Dream in the PES “did not play a positive role on the path of Georgia’s European integration, but is completely counterproductive.”
“In recent years, the PES has increasingly moved away from the classical, social democratic ideology and switched to a pseudo-liberal platform. Such an ideological transformation is unacceptable to us and incompatible with the vision of our party, as well as Georgian society. Taking into account all of the above, we have decided to renounce the status of an observer country for the PES and other associations associated with the Party of European Socialists, regarding which our written statement will be immediately sent,” Kobakhidze said.
On May 8, the Vice President of the Party of European Socialists, Keti Piri, said there was unanimity in the political union regarding the suspension of the status of the Georgian Dream.
Another PES member, MEP Tais Reuten, commented on the expulsion of Georgia’s ruling party, expressing her hope that Georgian Dream would no longer follow the path of Orban and Putin, and noted that today the Georgian government is associated precisely with Orban and right-wing forces. According to him, this is not the place where Georgia and the Georgian government should be.
A few days before Keti Piri’s statement, the Party of European Socialists condemned the speech of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili in Hungary and noted that the issue of suspending the status of the Georgian Dream would be considered at the next session, which is a “necessary step”.
Irakli Garibashvili spoke at an annual conference of conservative political action in Budapest, where he said that the Hungarian people were very lucky to have “such a wise and far-sighted” leader. According to him, the forces opposed to the truth are trying to achieve their goals with the help of LGBT propaganda.
Also, according to Garibashvili the vast majority of Georgian society shares traditional, conservative family values, and these values are not only a legacy of the past, but also a living present – an environment in which “we grew up and want to raise our children.”
