“I am delighted that by establishing a new parliamentary channel, we thus commence the realization of an important initiative for Georgian democracy”, - the Speaker, H.E. Shalva Papuashvili stated at the ceremony of signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Parliament and Public Broadcaster.

According to him, direct access to reliable information is vital for a democratic society. Per his assessment, the media milieu in Georgia is far more free and liberated than ever but the standards of the freedom of expression in a democracy shall be exposed to uninterrupted improvement.

“The Parliament of Georgia is one of the leaders across the globe with its openness and transparency degree, which has been numerously reiterated by the Open Government Partnership. Today, by establishing a new parliamentary channel, we further improve the direct public control of parliamentary activity. The citizens concerned in politics will now enjoy an opportunity to easily commiserate with the vicissitudes of parliamentary life and make informed conclusions based on direct observation”, - he stated elucidating that the fact of polarization of the Georgian political spectrum has been numerously underlined.

“I do hope that a new channel will contribute to the mitigation of polarization inasmuch as it will allow our citizens to witness and resort to their intuition in estimating the positions, words and deeds of the parliamentary political forces instead of merely relying on the political interpretations. I would like to thank the Public Broadcaster and its Board of Trustees for productive cooperation, and would like to express my gratitude to the Administration of the Parliament, and the Department of Public Relations and Information for, in collaboration with the Public Broadcaster, making this idea technically feasible and the “Parliamentary Channel” is now being broadcasted”, - the Speaker stated.

The Memorandum was signed by the Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili and the Director General of the PB, Tinatin Berdzenishvili. Under the Memorandum, the maintenance of the “Parliamentary Channel” is to be ensured to start the live broadcasting of the parliamentary events and schedule. The PB provides maintenance free of charge.