Ruling party head: “objective decision” will “definitely” grant EU candidate status to Georgia this year

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said the European Commission’s new report on Georgia had revealed that under an “objective decision” the country should “definitely” receive a European Union membership candidate status this year.

Kobakhidze’s remarks followed the analytical report of the EU body, released on Thursday, that assessed the capacity of Georgia to assume the obligations of the bloc’s membership. 

It provided a detailed analysis on where the country stood with regard to its alignment with the EU acquis, the EU's body of common rights and obligations.

In his remarks over the report, Kobakhidze noted it was “clear” from the conclusions that the country deserved the candidate status by “all parameters”.

“First of all, we would like to thank the European Commission for the very positive assessment of our country”, the party Chair said.

With this assessment document, the European Commission has itself confirmed what we have been asserting since June of last year: the report clearly shows that Georgia deserved the candidate status by all parameters”, he added, in reference to the decision of the European Commission to grant the country a European perspective, instead of the full-fledged candidate status, in 2022.

“Georgia is significantly ahead of Moldova by 12 points and ahead of Ukraine in almost all key parameters”, the GD official also said. 

Kobakhidze stressed the document revealed that, in a decision based on “objective criteria”, Georgia should “definitely” receive the candidate status this year.

We would like to remind you that last year the radical [domestic] opposition, NGOs and media outlets affiliated with them used the decision of the European structures [on not granting the country the candidate status] to try to create disturbance and deepen polarisation in the country [...] the richest NGOs even demanded the resignation of the Government”, he continued.

Earlier today, Pawel Herczynski, the European Union Ambassador to Georgia, congratulated the country’s Government on the “very positive” report from the European Commission.