Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili on Friday said he hoped the country’s European partners would consider the results of its implementation of the European Union conditions for granting it the membership candidate status, after the release of a European Commission report that noted its progress in the work, agenda.ge reports.
Darchiashvili noted the document “clearly confirmed” the country “deserved” to be granted the membership candidate status, and “by all parameters” maintained its leadership ahead of other Eastern Partnership states in the implementation of reforms.
“Under the standard EU procedure, the assessment report is first published and then a political decision is made on granting the status. In our case, this has happened the other way around”, he pointed out.
“In particular, due to the new geopolitical circumstances, the European Commission had to make a political decision in a force majeure situation, where, unfortunately, the progress of Georgia in terms of sectoral integration was not taken into account”, Darchiashvili said in reference to the Commission’s decision last year, when it granted membership candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova but only a European perspective to Georgia.
This [new] report is once again a clear confirmation that Georgia deserves to be granted the status, and by all parameters maintains its leadership in terms of the implementation of reforms adopted within the framework of European integration”, the top Georgian diplomat continued.
Darchiashvili also stressed that the 12-point priorities defined by the European Council for Georgia were being successfully implemented, with most of them “fully fulfilled”.
We hope that when making a political decision at the end of this year, the European Union will take into account both the results of the implementation of 12 priorities and the progress in the report, which is the most important element on the path to full membership in the European Union”, he said.
“The results in the mentioned report are the outcome of the correct, consistent reforms carried out by the Georgian Government and its European political course, which is one of the main directions of our foreign policy”, Darchiashvili concluded.
Earlier today, Pawel Herczynski, the European Union Ambassador to Georgia, congratulated the country’s Government on the “very positive” report from the European Commission.
