The European Union may consider temporarily suspending its visa-free regime with Georgia if an Oct. 26 parliamentary election in the EU candidate country is not free, fair and peaceful, the bloc's ambassador to Tbilisi said on Friday.

Under a visa liberalization agreement signed in 2017, Georgian citizens can spend up to three months a year in the EU without a visa – a tangible and valuable achievement that has benefited many ordinary Georgians who previously had to wait in a long process of applying for visas.

Maka Botchorishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament's European Integration Committee, on Friday expressed concerns over “ongoing speculation” regarding the European Union's visa-free travel with Tbilisi,

"All options are on the table" if Georgia does not reverse its trend toward authoritarianism, "including the potential temporary suspension of the visa liberalization scheme," a spokesperson for the European Commission told Politico.

The European Union may suspend the visa-free regime for Georgian citizens. This would be a response to the anti-democratic actions of the Georgian government and its anti-Western rhetoric, according to Politico.