Lithuania's HU-LCD, Georgian opposition party sign cooperation pact

VILNIUS – The opposition conservative Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats and Georgia's opposition party European Georgia – Movement for Liberty agreed on Wednesday signed a memorandum on bilateral cooperation to cooperate in strengthening democracy in this Caucasian country.

The memorandum was signed in Vilnius by HU-LCD leader Laurynas Kasciunas and the Georgian party's chairman George Tsereteli.

"We need to support Georgian independence, I would say even so, democracy and independence. And our politicians and our party will do everything we can to support this country and this nation," Kasciunas told BNS, adding that bilateral cooperation is based on training, mutual exchange of good practices.

"We clearly state that we support Sakartvelo's EU and NATO integration, this is our strategic goal. We will always support the democratic self-determination of the people so that no authoritarian regime can violate the will of the people, because this is extremely important, and we will do so on all possible fronts and through all possible channels," the HU-LCD leader underlined.

According to Tsereteli, this cooperation is not just a symbolic gesture, but a politically very important step for the whole of Europe that Lithuania signs an agreement with Georgia's pro-European party.

"I'm very happy that we are signing today this memorandum of cooperation, which will give an additional charge to our party and to relations of our two parties to, let's say, work together, to help each other, at this moment that they need more help than Lithuanians to pursue our European integration path," the Georgian politician said.

"With our partners, with our previous coalition partners or future partners, we don't know how things will go in Georgia, but we are of course optimistic, we still have a lot of lot of optimism looking at our people who are protesting more than 300 days," he added.

As BNS reported earlier, the populist Georgian Dream party won the local elections in early October. On the election day, the opposition staged a protest against the ruling party, calling it a "last chance" to preserve democracy. Tens of thousands of people waving Georgian and EU flags flooded Tbilisi's Freedom Square, where a rally, called a "national assembly" by its organizers, took place.

For its part, the government vowed a harsh response to "those seeking revolution."

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Georgian Dream has been accused of bringing Tbilisi closer to Russia and adopting repressive Moscow-style legislation.