Free Democrats: Crisis Management Council should become part of Security Council
By Tea Mariamidze
Friday, February 5
The Free Democrats (FD) opposition party has presented an initiative to unite the Crisis Management Council with the National Security Council. The FD party made this statement after the President delivered his annual speech at Parliament on February 3.
According to FD MP Viktor Dolidze, it is necessary to unite these two councils in order to make their work more efficient. Dolidze underlined that after an amalgamation, the combined body should be subordinated to the President of Georgia.
It should be noted that the National Security Council is a presidential structure and is subordinated to President Margvelashvili, while the Crisis Management Council is under the jurisdiction structure of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Majority MP Gia Volski believes that the initiative of Free Democrats is unrealistic. He says it is impossible to combine these two different structures.
“These two structures deal with different sectors and it will not be appropriate to amalgamate them. Besides, both have their own specific and defined functions,” noted Volski.
According to the Justice Minister of Georgia, Tea Tsulukiani, the majority does not approve the initiative presented by the Free Democrats.
“I express the position of the whole government. We do not support these two councils to be united and subordinated to the President, because the government has too much responsibility and work; it should have a separate crisis management board, which is necessary to fulfill the obligations of the population,” stated Tsulukiani.
Political expert Gia Khukhashvili says that the Crisis Management Council should be abolished.
“I think that the Crisis Management Council should be abolished because there is a degree of overlap with the Security Council. The Security Council already handles many of the directions currently under the auspices of CMC, but if the CMC’s issues need more direct management, it would be better to make a subsidiary body inside the Security Council itself,” the expert noted.
