Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has criticized his country's new government for putting pressure on the director general of Georgian Public Broadcasting (GPB) to resign.

President Saakashvili's United National Movement was defeated in national parliamentary elections last October by the Georgian Dream Coalition, founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is now the Prime Minister. The next presidential elections are due in October 2013.

Addressing the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) in Strasbourg this week, Mr Saakashvili said that GPB – the EBU's Member in Georgia – was created to establish new standards of objectivity in his country's media scene.

Quoting the European Union's media monitoring mission, he said that GPB had provided the "only absolutely balanced reporting" during last year’s election campaign.

"Instead of reinforcing the emergence of an objective public TV channel, the new government has pushed the director of GPB to resign and has announced a plan to merge GPB with a channel privately owned by the new leaders," Mr Saakashvili said. "Such an initiative would take us years and years backwards."

GPB Director General Giorgi Chanturia resigned suddenly from his post in December, shortly after attending the EBU's General Assembly, in Geneva.

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre will visit Georgia in early February for meetings with GPB management and senior Georgian politicians. She notes the view of the European Commission's High-Level Group on Media Freedom, which reported in Brussels this week that governments must rigorously respect the editorial and creative independence of public service media.

GPB has been a major beneficiary of the EBU's Partnership Programme, which provides a wide variety of special support to EBU Members requiring specific assistance or consultancy in strategic, technical, political or other fields.

The Programme is built on the prime EBU principle of solidarity, and works to reinforce the core values of public service media: universality, independence, excellence, diversity, accountability and innovation.