MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s economy by the end of April was just 0.9% larger than a year earlier, the Georgian national statistics agency said. Georgia and the rest of the region are coping with the twin impact of a drop in the value of the Russian rouble and a decline in oil prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A tiger at Tbilisi Zoo attacked its keeper ripping her arms and legs, media reported. Reports said the woman keeper, who has worked at the zoo for 25 years, was standing in an area outside the main cage when she was attacked. Doctors said they had amputated her leg and her situation was serious.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At an EU summit in Riga which included former Soviet states in the South Caucasus, Armenia signed a declaration supporting improved cooperation with Brussels. The Armenian delegation, though, declined to support a communique that was negative of Russia’s interference in Ukraine.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sales of new apartments in Georgia have slumped because of the worsening economic conditions, media reported quoting developers. Specifically, sales of luxury apartments are down 70% and sales of more basic apartments have dropped by 10%.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Direct Tbilisi-Tehran flights will begin next month, media reported quoting Tbilisi mayor David Narmania. The launch of a direct route between Tbilisi and Tehran highlights the growing links between the two countries. Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Bagher was visiting Tbilisi to sign a twinning agreement.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At its summit meeting in Riga, the EU promised Georgia that it would decide by the end of the year whether to grant Georgians visa-free travel.
Georgia’s government has lobbied hard for a visa-free regime across Europe as it sees this as a vital step towards achieving its ultimate aim of joining the EU.
The EU had presented the so-called Visa Liberalisation Action Plan (VLAP) progress report on Georgia and Ukraine a couple of weeks earlier. It congratulated Georgia on its progress, but also pointed out that it needed to implement reforms in asylum, anti-corrup- tion, human trafficking and drugs.
The decision was a disappointment to Georgia’s government as well as for many ordinary Georgians. Misha Shavtvaladze, a political scientist from Tbilisi State University, explained.
“But the fact that we are not ready for this upgrade had a negative psychological effect. It has a lot to do with the national pride, like winning the Eurovision does.”
The opposition blamed the government for the lack of good news, but Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili said he did receive a positive message from the EU. Georgia will be the next country to be granted visa waiver, possibly even earlier than Ukraine, he told media.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament will consider adopting a law that will shift supervisory powers over commercial banks away from the Central Bank to an independent supervisory body, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the country’s parliamentary election process is unfair.
In particular, the Court said discrepancies in the size of the constituencies used for the first-past-the-post system diminished the election’s fairness.
In Georgia’s parliamentary elections, 150 MPs are voted into parliament. The first- past-the-post system is used to elect 73 MPs and proportional representation for the remain- ing 77 seats. The problem,advocates for change have said, is that the first-past-the-post constituencies vary in size from 6,000 voters to over 150,000 voters.
The landmark ruling strengthens the case for change.
“It’s up to the Georgian Parliament to decide on proportional and majoritarian models of the electoral system provided that constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens will be protected in this process,” Georgian media quoted the Constitutional Court as saying.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Four Georgian MPs quit the main opposition group the United National Movement (UNM), including the party’s executive secretary Zurab Japaridze. The UNM is former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s party. About a dozen UNM MPs have quit but Mr Japaridze is the most high profile.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government approved a plan to split the country’s much-loathed interior ministry in two.
The idea is to spin off the security and intelligence responsibilities of the interior ministry and unravel a merger created by former president Mikheil Saakashvili. He joined the two ministries together in the early part of his 2004-13 administration under the premise of cutting costs. Since then, though, its unpopularity has grown and opposition parties have pledged to break it up.
The most eye-catching part of the reform is placing the new State Security Service under parliamentary control to increase surveillance over it. The head of the State Security Service will be elected for one six year term only.
These reforms will, probably, prove popular with ordinary Georgians. They are also important at a former Soviet Union level too as they once again show Georgia’s ambitions.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)