Prime Minister of Georgia Iraklii Garibashvili will take part in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The information was confirmed by the administration of the Georgian government.
The event, which the media call the "anti-LGBT conference", will be held in Hungary on May 4-5. The main spokesman of the forum is the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban.
The announcement of the Georgian Prime Minister's speech was published by the Budapest-based conservative organization "Center for Fundamental Rights".
"(Iraklii Garibashvili) believes that Georgia is a conservative society with Christian values. Garibashvili believes that activists and politicians are obliged to respect the will of the majority, and the vast majority of Georgians reject the propagandistic, demonstrative pressure of LGBTQ people," the message reads.
The Conservative Political Action Conference, organized by the American Conservative Union, was first held in 1974. Last year, this event was also held in the capital of Hungary. Last year's conference was devoted to values - "God, Motherland, family".
This year, the motto of the conference is "Together we are strong". According to the Associated Press, the focus of the conference will be "liberals' nightmare: an international alliance of national forces."
"I will not be surprised if Garibashvili receives the next invitation from North Korea," says Nona Mamulashvili, a former member of the United National Movement.
"The Georgian Dream government demonstratively and purposefully harms the process of integration into the European Union," says Tamta Mikeladze from the Center for Social Justice. He considers Garibashvili's participation in a homophobic, anti-gender conference before the possible grant of EU candidate status to Georgia unjustified.
"The values of this person are best seen in such matters, and he is probably the darkest politician in the history of Georgia. Nobody likes Viktor Orban in the West, and the only person with whom Garibashvili maintains active relations with the EU is Viktor Orban. This speaks well of his values," says Giorgii Tabagari from Tbilisi Pride. He also considers the Prime Minister's participation in the conference planned in Budapest to be sabotage.
Garibashvili's participation in the conference was commented on by the Ambassador of Hungary to Georgia, Hanna Maria Shiko.
"The organizers of the Conservative Conference sent an invitation to Prime Minister Garibashvili, because this is a broad platform of political views, it concerns the values we share," she said.
Member of the European Parliament Viola von Cramon, commenting on Garibashvili's participation in the conference, addressed the group of political partners of "Georgian Dream" in the European Parliament. Mriya is an observer member of the European Socialist Party (PES), which is represented in the European Parliament as part of the "Progressive Alliance of Social Democrats" (S&D).
"Did you see? Your partner, the Georgian party, is campaigning with Steve Bannon's far-right camp and others in Hungary... Are you sure this is the right alliance for a 'progressive' party?" - Von Kramon wrote on Twitter.
The mass media remind that the governments of Hungary and Georgia do not hide their sympathies for each other's policies. In October 2022, Viktor Orban called his Georgian colleague "a great politician among the few" who "returned", and Iraklii Garibashvili noted that the Georgian government had taken Hungary's example in many respects.
