Polish MEP Michał Kobosko, a member of the Renew Europe Group, discusses recent developments in Georgia in an exclusive interview with InterpressNews.

He emphasizes that the European Union firmly supports a free and democratic Georgia and backs the European aspirations of the majority of its population.

In the interview, Kobosko highlights Vladimir Putin’s "crazy dream" of restoring the former Soviet Union, stating that his goal is to reclaim former Soviet republics, including Georgia—something the EU will not allow.

What concrete steps should the West take to support Georgia’s EU aspirations? Are there similarities between Belarus and Georgia? Is the European Union prepared to strengthen its defense and military capabilities? - Kobosko discussed these and other key issues in an exclusive interview with InterpressNews.

Following the October 26 elections, Georgia has faced a deep political crisis, with protests on Rustaveli Avenue ongoing for over 100 days. Citizens are demanding new elections and the release of detained protesters. How do you assess the current situation in Georgia?

We are watching very closely what's happening in Georgia. You mentioned, over 100 days of street protests, they do not come from nowhere. They come from the feeling of the big part of the Georgian society and population that you are a part of Europe, you belong to Europe, that you should be here with us, together with us, forming a joint European project, and I believe so. We had a resolution recently passed by the European Parliament where we noticed what's happening in Georgia, that we noticed the steps taken by the Georgian Dream Party and political leadership, where the government is reducing the democratic rights, democratic freedoms, the human rights, the media freedom. These are the issues which worry us a lot.

We would love to see Georgia going on the European path, going towards European Union. We do hope to see Georgia as a member state, specifically for me, for a citizen of Poland. I look very closely at your situation and I would love to see Georgian Dream going backwards, back to Europe, and distancing itself from going to the Putin way, I would call it this way.

So, we are watching you very closely and I do hope that the European authorities will be supporting your European aspirations, because that's exactly where you belong.

How would you evaluate the current foreign policy of the Georgian Dream? Do you share the widely spread view that nowadays Georgia is already out of European orbit?

We've noticed some steps, some moves of the Georgian Dream when they try to balance in a way, their attitude towards European Union on one side and Moscow on the other side. The problem is in today's world that we are living in increasingly, black and white world. You cannot balance European Union with the freedoms that we are offering to our citizens, to our member states, with the ideas of Vladimir Putin.

He has this crazy dream of restoring the former Soviet Union. We see for three years now what he's been doing in Ukraine with this brutal aggression and invasion on the free and independent and sovereign state of Ukraine. And we cannot let him grab Georgia.

It's a very basic idea and it's not us telling the Georgian people what to do. We see the reaction, the protests of the Georgian society. So, we believe there is not much space for the Georgian government trying to maneuver somewhere in between us because this is very black and very white to choose between.

And we hope that your government eventually would either choose the European way, the democratic way or would resign seeing the number, the size and scale of the citizens' protests.

What role should the West play in supporting Georgia’s aspirations to join the EU? What concrete steps should be taken to help achieve this goal?

I believe that the European leaders should clearly link the support, the institutional support of the European Union towards Georgia, link this to the way that Georgian citizens are treated by the government. Meaning, what's the size, what's the scale of the judicial independence in the country, of how the human rights are implemented. Also, the press freedom. Press freedom is absolutely fundamental. We see some moves of the Georgian Dreams towards limiting, reducing also the press freedom. I believe there are ways that EU, which is a peace project, this is a very peaceful project.

We are not a military alliance. We are the alliance of the willing nations, willing member states. So, we are and we could and we should use the diplomatic pressure put on the Georgian governments to make sure that your society, your nation is being treated in such a democratic way, according to the democratic standards. We do not have our powers than to use diplomatic pressure, diplomatic input to try to persuade the government which way is the best for your country.

Many Western European politicians and experts compare Georgia’s trajectory to Belarus. As Vice-Chair of the Delegation for relations with Belarus, do you see these similarities?

Well, I think the key word that you used is almost. I would say thanks God and thanks to the people of Georgia, you are not in the position of Belarus yet. I mean, Belarus is not lost from the European community of nations and societies, but in Belarus today you can find a lot of elements which do not exist in Georgia and hopefully they will not exist in Georgia. In Belarus you have a total lack of the freedom, of the media freedom.

You do not have a real opposition acting from inside the country. There is a strong Belarusian opposition, but they have to act and manage their activities from outside of the country. They were pushed out of the country.

You have more than 1200 political prisoners in Belarus and so on and so on. Unfortunately, you could see many signs, many evidences that Georgia is on the Belarusian path, but you still have a strong civil society in the country. You still have strong independent media in the country.

You have a strong society which can and is resisting. As we see from this more than 100 days of the recent protests. So the strong society is there, a strong opposition is there, the democratic standards are still present in the country.

I wouldn't go definitely that far to say that Georgia is like Belarus. Thanks God it is not and hopefully it will not become Belarus, because you see that clearly Belarus is on the same way as Putin's Russia and nobody should let Georgia become another Belarus.

The mental changes, the kind of thinking that you came out of the, let's say the Soviet thinking, also of the previous generations, when Georgia still belonged to the Soviet Union or Soviet Empire. You are independent and sovereign country and specifically the younger generation of Georgians. You are very pro-European and pro-democratic and pro-European thinking in what you represent. You are the big hope of the society.

Baltic states imposed sanctions on Georgian Dream members. Lithuania has imposed sanctions on 74 members of the ruling party, Latvia on 16, and Estonia on 55 Georgian citizens, including high- ranking officials. The sanctions involve travel restrictions, barring those affected from entering the Baltic states. Is Poland considering similar measures?

We often cooperate very closely with the Baltic states, because there are lots of similarities among these countries, Poland and the three Baltic states. We are watching obviously very closely also at the sanctions that they imposed. Here I cannot talk on behalf of the Polish government. I'm not aware of the discussions that are being having place at the Polish MFA or the Polish government. I cannot exclude that Poland might be considering to impose sanctions depending on the directions, on the decisions taken by the Georgian government.

But as far as I know, no decisions have been taken on the Polish side. Perhaps the Polish government hopes to see some dialogue with the Georgian Dream to continue and trying to also to help them better understand the situation, the position, also related to the ongoing issue of Ukraine. But no decisions have been taken yet and I cannot say whether Poland would impose sanctions as well.

In EU capitals and especially in Brussels there are more discussions regarding the decisions made by Trump administration and stopping support to Ukraine. EU leaders are starting to realizing the importance to increase their defense and military capabilities, as well to be less dependent on the US. Do you believe the EU is prepared to enhance its defense and military capabilities to reduce reliance on the U.S.?

Things are changing dramatically nowadays. And since the inauguration of President Trump on January 20, we saw a lot of emotions, a lot of words, new wording, but also new decisions taken by the Trump administration. That worries us, obviously, because we see some changes, some drastic changes in the language used towards Europe from Washington DC. And this is why when you ask whether, you know, is Europe able to change our course, our position, that's, I believe that's not the case. The case is that we really have to, that we have no other choice rather than changing our position and investing much more in the defense as separate member states, but also as a community, as a whole of the European Union.

We have to spend much more than before and we have to cooperate, coordinate our actions in the European Union to the level which is unprecedented. I would say in over 80% dependent on the purchases of our military equipment from other players, such as US, or in the case of Poland, this is South Korea, or Turkey or other countries. We believe that we have to buy much more from European suppliers, that we have to have joint purchases. Traditionally, we did not. Each country of the member states of the European Union was doing their own, was running their own defense policy. Things have to change, firstly, because Russia is there. And if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, definitely Putin would go elsewhere as well. That understanding is clear and broad right now in European Union. But secondly, your question related to the US, we have to consider the real change in the policy of the United States. And this is meaning that we have to take care of ourselves much more than we did in the past.

But timing is also important, because unfortunately, sometimes the EU is slow in making such decisions. I mean, if this will be decided after 10-15 years, it will be too late.

I believe that we have no choice other than really speed up our decision making process. Yes, we were slow. That was because the European Union as a project was made of kind of a compromise. You have 27 member states nowadays, with a number of countries, including Georgia, being the candidate countries. And among these 27 member states, there is a kind of obligation to find a compromise, to have each country has the same force of voice, even though we have smaller countries, bigger countries, but each country is treated in a similar way.

We have to find a compromise. And compromise always takes time, a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of creative thinking to find a compromise among the member states. Nowadays, however, we have to change that.

And that's very clear. And I believe this is fully understood by the key political players of the European Union, that we have to act much faster, much quicker, be much more effective. Our decision-making process, how to do it, that's still a question, obviously.

But since the formation of a new European Commission, for the very first time, we have a commissioner dedicated for the defense of security, Mr. Kubilius of Lithuania. And with that as a symbol, but not only a symbol, we are showing the decision-making process will be quicker, will be faster, that we do not have this e.g. 10 or 15 years, but we just have a couple of years to get prepared for the possible aggression. And that's the new reality.

And it was in the very beginning, it was fully understood by Poland, Baltic States, our part of the continent. Nowadays, I can notice that it's fully understood also on the western part, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy. We are in the same boat, and they are endangered in a very similar way as we are in the east of Europe.

I see a lot of understanding. We are waiting for the outcome of the next European summit coming on the 24th of March. And there we are expanding fundamental decisions to increase the level of spending, of defense spending, but also increase the timing, shorten the timing when the decisions are made and implemented.

Is the current level of European military and financial assistance to Ukraine sufficient, or should the EU do more?

We don't know, how the US would behave, what they would do. They had a short time when they stopped, as a whole, the aid delivered to Ukraine. That was very wrong from our perspective. Ukraine does need a lot of our aid. You rightly said the EU, as a whole, has funded a lot of aid and help to Ukraine, both the military, the financial, the humanitarian, all kinds of help.

And we need to sustain it. Even though we are not able to help as much as we did in the past with the direct military aid, because we simply send a lot of our own equipment to Ukraine. But still, we have financial ability to help Ukraine, keep funding, help them funding, financing the purchases of the military equipment.

There is now a discussion of a new package worth some 40 billion euro to be sent by European Union to Ukraine to help them fund the war, fund the defense. I believe that again, not knowing what the US would do, we have to do at least as much as we did so far, until there is a just peace in Ukraine. And just peace, meaning that Ukraine is not forced to the peace, but will negotiate and accept the terms of peace.

Some politicians in Europe advocate for immediate peace talks, while others emphasize continued military support for Ukraine. Where do you stand on this debate?

For the time being, there is still a full-scale aggression happening in Ukraine, aggression of Russia against Ukraine. Until this is stopped, we have to keep helping and aiding Ukraine as much as we can, as long as it takes.

This is beyond discussion, I would say, from our European perspective, because we have to stop Russia in Ukraine if we don't want to have a real war on the rest of our continent, in other countries. On the peace talks, we believe that the war should stop this year, that three years is already a very, very long time. It's been devastating for Ukraine as a country, as the state, as the state infrastructure, critical infrastructure.

We believe in peace, but we do not believe in peace at any terms, as you might sometimes also hear in Brussels or in Strasbourg during our European Parliament debates. We believe that Ukraine should be a part of the peace talks, and it's up to Ukraine what terms they would be ready to accept. It's not up to Russia to force Ukraine to the peace.

It's not also a role of the United States to force Ukraine to accept the peace terms. We believe in peace. We believe that Ukraine should be there, and we also believe that Europe should be there as a part of the peace negotiations, peace talks, because Ukraine is a part of Europe.

We are there, we will be there also to assist, to help Ukraine with the reconstruction after the war. Obviously we should be there, and we should be also negotiating the terms, and we hope that we will reach a consensus, that this will happen any time soon. We just cannot accept the terms, all terms demanded by Russia.

For example, we cannot just accept that Russia will say what we took over, the territories of Ukraine that we took over will be ours for ages, because they were taken by force, and force is not the way to achieve or to change borders in Europe in the 21st century. We cannot accept this, because if we were to accept this, Russia would use this while they would be addressing issues with other countries, including Georgia, including Baltic States, Poland or Lithuania in Eastern Europe. There are different ways, and the European project, European Union, is an example how to build a project which is based on peace, and yes, thanks to the existence of the European Union, we had no war, no full-scale war on the continent since the end of World War II.

This is because the European Union exists. Without that, for ages, for decades, Europe was a victim of the constant wars, smaller, bigger, local, regional. With European Union, we are where we are.

We cannot just go to square one and accept force and aggression, and using the army as a tool to resolve regional problems in Europe.

Thank you so much. That was my final question. If there was something that we did not cover, you have the floor.

We are standing with a free and democratic Georgia. We are supporting your dreams, your aspirations, your beliefs, and you can count on us. We'll be here as members of the European Parliament. We'll be supporting you. You know where to find us if you need anything from our side. On our side, as I said, we will keep expressing our support. We will have a number of other resolutions. We'll be happy to support you.

We are watching very closely the case of Mikheil Saakashvili, obviously, with this recent another five-year sentence, which is dramatic, because we know that he is in a bad shape. We know what we experienced in the prison until recently. So that's a very symbolic case where we want to show our support to your democratic aspirations.

We know that he has been a colorful figure in the Georgian politics, that he has been a bit controversial to some people. We know that perfectly well. But he is part of the democratic Georgia, and we cannot let the politicians of the democratic Georgia be treated this way.

Beka Beriashvili

Brussels-based Correspondent of Interpressnews