President Margvelashvili in Strasbourg:
October’s Parliamentary Election will test democracy in Georgia

Georgia has implemented a number of useful reforms and European leaders do appreciate this.

This was stressed by Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili as he visited Strasbourg for a working visit yesterday.

Visiting #Strasbourg.First meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe @TJagland invited him to #Georgiapic.twitter.com/Rt4JSoOIuc

— President Of Georgia (@MargvelashviliG) June 6, 2016

The President held his first visit with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland. The pair discussed four main topics, which were:

1. President Margvelashvili’s involvement in preparing changes of Georgia’s Constitutional Court law;
2. The upcoming Parliamentary Elections in October;
3. The importance of a long pre-election campaign; and
4. The situation in Georgia’s Russian-occupied territories.

At the press conference following the meeting, Jagland said he welcomed Margvelashvili’s active involvement in the process of offering recommendations regarding changes to the Constitutional Court of Georgia.

The Secretary General also welcomed Margvelashvili’s involvement in ensuring a "constructive” election environment and said democratic elections were crucial for democratic states.

While in Strasbourg, France Margvelashvili spoke about Georgia-European Union (EU) relations at the Foreign Committee meeting at the European Parliament.

"Georgia merits visa free-regime with EU," @EP_ForeignAff in debate with @MargvelashviliG → https://t.co/kaQrYlBjbCpic.twitter.com/5TOZMcUp3u

— European Parliament (@Europarl_EN) June 7, 2016

The President said Georgia had clearly declared its European and Euro-Atlantic inspirations and the country and its people remained committed to this idea.

Margvelashvili also spoke about the importance of the upcoming Parliamentary Elections. He said the election date had already been set for October 8, which mean participating parties had an opportunity to conduct a four-month long and well-planned pre-election campaign.

"In the next four months we should address and overcome the main challenge that Georgia is currently facing – to get citizens to go to voting stations,” Margvelashvili said.

"Unfortunately in our country there are a large number of still undecided voters,” he added.

The President also called on European missions to observe Georgia’s elections as intensively as possible to ensure the process is transparence and democratic.

"I also want to stress that these will be the elections where competition will take place between pro-Western forces and those parties who are skeptical towards the West,” Margvelashvili said.

A Latvian member of European Parliament and rapporteur for Georgia Andrejs Mamikins listened to Margvelashvili’s speech with a Georgian flag on his table as a gesture of his support for the country.

European Parliament's rapporteur for Georgia Andrejs Mamikins. Photo by President's press office.

Visa liberalisation for Georgia was another important topic of Margvelashvili’s Strasbourg visit.

The President met European Parliamentarian Maria Gabriel, who is a rapporteur of Georgia’s visa liberalistaion. She confirmed Georgia had fulfilled all the responsibilities and the process of visa liberalisation was advancing at the European Parliament.

Meanwhile the Georgian delegation who accompanied President Margvelashvili to France were confident Georgia’s visa liberalisation bid would have a positive outcome at the European Parliament and the main challenge that currently remained was a "political decision” that must be made by the European Council and its member states to finally approve Georgia’s visa liberalisation.

Looking ahead, Margvelashvili will meet European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Strasbourg later today.

After that he will travel to Brussels and meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President of the European Council Donald Tusk and EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn.