On December 9, Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, described NATO’s "open door" policy as "a carrot for a donkey."

During his remarks, Papuashvili stated that NATO does not actually have a formal enlargement policy and argued that the so-called "open door" approach resembles "a carrot dangled in front of a donkey: it serves as a motivator to lead it in the right direction, but the donkey will never be able to reach it." He emphasized that, in his view, this situation eventually led everyone to face a "bitter reality," which he partly linked to the current conflict in Ukraine.