“Everyone must stop childish games. It is completely clear what we are dealing with. The Government of Germany does not recognize the sovereignty of the Georgian people, and this is a fact,” said the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili.

According to him, the German government does not recognize the right of the Georgian people to choose their own government, the right to democracy, and to independently determine state institutions.

“In fact, this means that Germany, which at the beginning of our independence was one of the countries that supported Georgia, today on the one hand acts as a violator of Georgia’s independence, and on the other hand as a party that humiliates the dignity of the Georgian people. This means that the German government views Georgians as second-class people who do not have the ability or the right to determine on their own who their government is, and that the website of the German Foreign Ministry should decide who is the president or foreign minister of our country. This is a great shame,” said Papuashvili.

According to him, Germany still has the opportunity to demonstrate that it remains committed to democracy and democratic Europe, or it is returning to its “dark past,” when the sovereignty and dignity of other nations were not recognized.

“It is important that a note is regularly sent every month to the Government of Germany stating that Georgians are not a people to be disregarded, especially not by the Government of Germany, and for many reasons. If this is the path the German Foreign Ministry has taken, and we see the path its ambassador is on, then of course this requires an appropriate response so that we do not accept the violation of our sovereignty. For many years we have had to fight politically and otherwise with Russia over the recognition of Georgia’s sovereignty. Today Russia is a country that does not recognize Georgia’s sovereignty and the jurisdiction of its government over part of its territory. Now, it turns out, the Government of Germany has been added, which through its actions does not recognize the jurisdiction of Georgia’s authorities,” Papuashvili said.

According to him, those who do not recognize the sovereignty of Georgia and the Georgian people must understand that they will be placed in the same category as political forces and countries that violate it.

“The Government of Germany, through its actions, shows that it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Georgian authorities over the entire territory of the country, not only part of it. If we are to believe the website of the German Foreign Ministry, today the authorities in Georgia are Salome Zourabichvili as president and Ilia Darchiashvili as head of the Foreign Ministry, who in reality is the Georgian ambassador to the United Kingdom. This is their distorted reality. Therefore, I do not know if you want to pretend, but I think there are no foolish people here—you do not believe this is a website error, do you? Months are passing, and despite reminders and requests, the names are not being changed. If the German Foreign Ministry is doing this deliberately, and the German ambassador in Georgia is also involved, then it means it is deliberately violating Georgia’s sovereignty and the dignity of the Georgian people,” Papuashvili stated.