Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-04-Speech-3-555-000"
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"en.20120704.31.3-555-000"2
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"Mr President, Minister, over the last year and a half I have had the pleasure of working on a report for the European Parliament concerning an association agreement between the European Union and Georgia. I have visited Georgia several times and taken part in dozens of meetings with representatives of both the government and opposition parties, with the Parliamentary Ombudsman, with media representatives, with representatives of non-governmental organisations – both those that work closely with the government and those that work closely with the present opposition, whether inside or outside parliament. I would like therefore to present my view, while reminding you at the start about two sections from our November resolution, a resolution that was adopted by over 90% of the European Parliament. In point M of the preamble we wrote: ‘welcome the significant progress made by Georgia in the areas of democratic reforms, including strengthening democratic institutions, particularly the Ombudsman's Office, the fight against corruption and the reform of the judiciary, as well as of economic reforms and liberalisation; congratulate Georgia on reducing overall and especially serious crime rates in the country’ and a bit further on in point O of the preamble we wrote: ‘call for the Georgian Government to enter more extensively into a constructive political dialogue with opposition forces and further develop a democratic environment for freedom of speech, especially the accessibility of public media for all political parties’.
I believe that today we would all put our signatures to this type of statement. Georgia has been praised, not just by us politicians, but also by non-governmental organisations such as
for its fight against corruption and for building a democratic structure. The last elections that took place in Georgia, which were local government elections, were very well viewed by all observers. Even the opposition said that there was no great tension and that the elections took place in accordance with international standards.
Today we are returning to this discussion. The question is: what has happened to make us have to return to discussing Georgia? In my opinion, one thing has happened, which the Minister has kindly discussed. One could say that we have a new entity or rather a new leader of the opposition in Georgia, a person who has billions of dollars at his disposal, whose budget and money exceed the entire budget of the Georgian state. Unfortunately, these monies are not being used properly.
I could speak of my experiences over the past months, but I think that most of us have had the same experience. For some months now we have been bombarded, several times a week, by something that goes by the name of
which gives information showing that President Saakashvili is a demon and that everything that the ruling party is doing in Georgia is improper, unacceptable, etc, etc. I took the liberty of investigating this situation to find out why this is happening. It turns out that Mr Ivanishvili has hired 18 American, British, German and French lobbying companies to work for him. I think that one thing needs to be emphasised, based on our democratic experience: the presence and functioning of oligarchs in politics does not end well. This I would like to dedicate to the Georgian opposition."@en1
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"Georgia Media Tracker,"1
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