President Saakashvili thanks EC President

The outgoing President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili met with the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy.

The politicians discussed Georgias European orientation. Saakashvili gave thanks to Van Rompuy for supporting Georgia on its way to European integration and called him a good friend and adviser.

"Georgia will progress more modestly than we hoped for but still progress towards the EU. We have no alternative for this. Of course it will be based on strong principles,"  said Mikheil Saakashvili. "We still have many issues out there in Georgia, like our former Prime-minister is stillin jail in solitary confinement. You see that there is a problem with Ukraine, where their prime-minister is in confinement and when we move to the Ukrainian stage, we might still face these problems. So we hope that this can be avoiding by a stronger rule of law, better institutions, and with the Europe as a transformational power for all of us. Im personally very grateful for president. He came to Georgia at very important moment in another capacity, his national capacity at a very important moment.

This is the outgoing President Saakashvilis second visit to Europe during the last ten days. As soon as the presidential elections completed, Mikheil Saakashvili held a meeting with the European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso in Brussels. Later he visited Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on November 4.