Luxembourg 18 May 2013, Georgia’s feuding political parties were urged on Saturday to cool tensions between them as their country seeks to join NATO and the European Union. “Now is the time for a normal democratic process. Bitter rhetoric and mutual accusations must be toned down,” Italian Senator Lucio Malan told legislators at the spring session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Luxembourg.
“The imperfections of the previous government’s rule must be addressed and rectified, but it should not turn into political revenge and the renunciation of all that has been achieved,” Malan said, during discussion of a report he drafted on Georgia’s relations with NATO.
NATO leaders have pledged that Georgia will one day become a member of the Alliance and the new government that came into power last October remains committed to joining.
Malan, whose report to the Assembly’s Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security is to be adopted in October, praised the Georgians for their tenacity in pushing through remarkable political and economic reforms. He noted that Georgia is the top troop contributor, per capita, to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. The Rapporteur said that at the next NATO summit, the Allies should seriously consider granting Membership Action Plan to Georgia.
However, he expressed concern about recent political tension.
“Membership in NATO or the EU would become a pipe dream, if Georgia were to sink into a deep internal political conflict and were unable to function as a genuine democracy,” he told the parliamentarians, who included Georgian representatives.