Georgian Dream to leave the Party of European Socialists
Georgian Dream will leave the Party of European Socialists. Chairman of the party Irakli Kobakhidze announced this at the briefing after the session of the political council.
According to him, the ruling party was a member of the PES since 2015. According to Kobakhidze, a written statement about the decision will be sent to the Party of European Socialists immediately.
"We have decided to leave observer membership of the Party of European Socialists and other associations related to the Party of European Socialists, regarding which our written statement will be immediately sent to the Party of European Socialists," Kobakhidze said.
In addition, as Kobakhidze explained, from today, Georgian Dream will cooperate with all European political parties on equal footing to achieve the foreign political goals "that we have set for our country, society and government".
"Today, a meeting of the political council of the party was held, which was attended by the Prime Minister, the general secretary of the party Kakhi Kaladze, the Chairman of the Parliament Shalva Papuashvili and other members of the political council directly and remotely. We discussed various issues at the session of the political council, and today I want to make a statement on one of the main issues on behalf of the political council of the party.
On May 4, Georgian Dream took part in the annual conference of Conservative Political Action in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, the motto of which was "God, Fatherland, Family". The participation of our party at the highest political level in the said conference and the Prime Minister's speech was an expression of our commitment and firm support to traditional universal values. We deeply believe that the progress and success of any nation and state needs a solid value base. Therefore, each of us should seriously think about the value crisis that has been created in the modern world and which the pseudo-liberals are deliberately deepening.
As it is known, our participation in the Conservative Political Action conference was critically evaluated by the leading officials of the European political party, whose observer member is Georgian Dream. Moreover, there was a kind of public threat made from their side to revise the cooperation, which was not preceded by any bilateral communication. This kind of action and attitude of the leaders of the Party of European Socialists is fundamentally unacceptable to us.
Our party has been an observer member of the Party of European Socialists since 2015. Unfortunately, since 2015, the Party of European Socialists has not made any loud statements in support of Georgian Dream. Moreover, individual representatives of the Party of European Socialists regularly joined political campaigns supporting the radical opposition. Last year and this year, several dozen MEPs from the Party of European Socialists supported the absurd resolutions by which the European Parliament demanded the imposition of sanctions on the founder of our party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the release of two criminals, Mikheil Saakashvili and Nika Gvaramia, and the termination of criminal prosecution against another criminal, Davit Kezerashvili. Unfortunately, the Party of European Socialists did not condemn the absurd resolutions by its member MEPs even once. In such conditions, the membership of Georgian Dream in the Party of European Socialists did not play a positive role in the path of European integration of Georgia, on the contrary, it was completely counterproductive.
In addition, from 2015 to the present, we have been continuously monitoring the ideological transformation of the Party of European Socialists. Over the past years, the said party has increasingly moved away from the classical social-democratic ideology and moved to a pseudo-liberal platform, which leads to the deepening of the value crisis created in the modern world. This kind of ideological transformation of the Party of European Socialists is unacceptable to us and incompatible with the values and visions of our party, as well as the Georgian society.
Taking into account all of the above, we have decided to leave observer membership of the Party of European Socialists and other associations related to the Party of European Socialists, regarding which our written statement will be immediately sent to the Party of European Socialists.
From today, Georgian Dream will cooperate with all European political parties on equal footing to achieve the foreign political goals that we have set for our country, society and government," said Kobakhidze.
