By Felix Light
TBILISI (Reuters) -Police deploying water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray confronted thousands of pro-European protesters erecting barricades in the centre of Tbilisi on Saturday after Georgia's ruling party said it was halting EU accession talks until 2028.
European Union accession is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia according to opinion polls, and the move saw thousands mass outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on Thursday before they were dispersed by riot police using water cannon and gas.
The freezing of application talks has been met with widespread anger in Georgia, which has the aim of EU membership written into its constitution.
Protesters carrying Georgian and EU flags pressed towards the Soviet-built fortress-like parliament building and hurled fireworks at police officers. Police forced them away from the assembly and down Rustaveli Boulevard toward the opera house.
Still in their thousands, demonstrators seized anything to hand and stood atop ramshackle barricades in a standoff with officers well past midnight. Fires were ablaze on the boulevard.
"We'll be here every night until they get tired," Nika Gvaramia, leader of Georgia's largest opposition party, the Coalition for Change, said as he warmed his hands over a fire.
"This is our country, we only have one, we’re going to fight for Europe.”
Elene Khoshtaria, another coalition leader, was wearing a sling after her hand was broken during Thursday's protest.
"We are not going to give in, we are not going to give up," she said. "But I think the international community should think how to support people who really believe in European values."
Hundreds of serving employees of the country's foreign, defence, education and justice ministries on Friday signed open letters denouncing the freeze in talks as unconstitutional.
A string of private universities have said they are suspending studies amid the unrest, while business groups have called for the government to review its stance.
The ruling Georgian Dream party, which won almost 54% of the vote in an October election that opposition parties say was rigged, said on Thursday that it was freezing membership talks over what it said was EU "blackmail" of Georgia.
WORSENING RELATIONS WITH EU
The move caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgia and the West, which has accused the Tbilisi government of authoritarian and pro-Russian inclinations.
Georgian Dream has this year passed laws against so-called "foreign agents" and LGBT rights, which critics say are draconian in nature and Russian in inspiration.
The party, which is widely seen as controlled by its founder, billionaire and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, says it wants eventually to join the EU, and that the laws it has passed are necessary to defend Georgia's traditional values.
The EU's ambassador to Georgia described Georgian Dream's stance as "heartbreaking" on Friday and condemned the crackdown on protesters.