Six opposition parties signed a “Declaration of Unity” in Brussels, outlining plans for the October 26 parliamentary elections and uniting around President Salome Zurabishvili’s Georgian Charter and its principles. They set a deadline of July 8 to decide on the best unifying configuration that will be most effective in winning the elections and implementing the necessary reforms after the elections.
The Venice Commission published its follow-up opinion on the draft amendments to the Electoral Code and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, stressing its concern that none of the recommendations had been taken into account by the Georgian authorities and that the amendments to the Electoral Code were made less than a year before the elections, which undermines public confidence.
In another opinion “On Amendments to the Election Code Which Abolish Gender Quotas”, the Venice Commission stresses the need for mechanisms in Georgia to ensure gender equality in the political sphere, emphasizing that such amendments in the Election Code less than a year before the elections “gives rise to serious concerns regarding stability of electoral law.”
On June 24, Ilia Darchiashvili, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia attended an informal meeting in Luxembourg, which hosted the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting that same day. According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s official press release, Minister Darchiashvili updated the EU’s foreign ministers on Georgia’s European integration agenda and “the progress in implementing recommendations” during the informal meeting.
In his latest weekly newsletter, Rikard Jozwiak, Europe editor for RFE/RL, explains how the EU is expected to respond to the backslide in Georgia. According to Rikard Jozwiak, the options paper outlines three levels of potential action, of which short-term measures are the easiest to agree on and thus most likely to be taken.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk praised the Georgian Dream authorities for their “sovereign” stance, saying it has already had a positive impact on trade and economic relations between Russia and Georgia. “If you look at Georgia… more and more they consider themselves as an independent sovereign state that seeks to live in peace with its neighbors. They understand that they do not want to be used as a springboard for projecting threats to the Russian Federation,” said Overchuk at the Primakov Conference.
Parliament’s Sector Economy and Economic Policy Committee discussed the draft Law on Energy and Water Supply in the first reading. According to the Committee Chair David Songulashvili, the draft law is supplemented by a new article foreseeing the exemption from the electricity regulation Fees supplied to the occupied territories of Georgia, and the remuneration of the services of the energy system commercial operator.