If you sanction me, sanctioned me, what do you want from the Georgian people? Do not you claim that you stand by the Georgian people? All these are actions based on lies - when we are dealing with such a massive lie, we will not refuse to protect national interests because of this, - this is how Georgian Dream MP Tengiz Sharmanashvili assesses the European Commission's statement, according to which Georgia may lose its visa-free travel status with Europe.

According to Sharmanashvili, the ruling team adheres to all the rules stipulated by the Association Agreement.

"When we took the first steps towards joining the European Union, there were certain conditions. When questions were asked about what conditions we had to meet, including those regarding same-sex marriage and other similar issues, their answer was that this was a matter of internal national legislation and we should not use it as propaganda, as if someone was imposing this on us or something like that. Also, weren't we alone in these issues regarding transparency? France adopted a radical law against us, and now the European Union is taking the same path. The US adopted it in the 1930s. In other words, this was not foreign legislation for the civilized world. Nevertheless, these conditions were imposed on us and they may impose additional ones tomorrow. This is not following the rules of the game. We comply with all the rules that are defined by the Association Agreement and we say that by 2028, we will have fulfilled them almost 100%.

As for visa liberalization - with regard to all the rules, under which these monitoring groups came, there were positive trends every year and they noted that Georgia was honestly fulfilling these issues. Despite this, they started to introduce additional elements. In such conditions, our response is that we will defend our constitution, legislation and national interests. If they punish the nation for this, it will completely nullify the case and the narrative that they have: “We stand by the Georgian people, we just don’t like the Georgian government.”