Georgian MPs: EU membership bid does not come “out of the blue”

Georgia’s bid for European Union membership is not a “whim of the Government” or a “cynical exploitation” of a growing European sympathy toward Ukraine amid the Russian invasion of the country, Nikoloz Samkaharadze, the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Georgian Parliament and Deputy Chair Giorgi Khelashvili said on Thursday.

The two MPs made the comment posted on EURACTIV media network following an opinion piece of the Centre for European Policy Studies researchers, and said the article by Michael Emerson and Steven Blockmans,  was “riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions”.

The opinion piece called Georgia’s bid for EU membership “dubious” and noted the country’s “political regime has for years been contradicting the EU’s fundamental values on the functioning of democratic institutions and the rule of law”.

Samkharadze and Khelashvili highlighted the ruling Georgian Dream party had made the initial plan for a 2024 submission of EU membership application “its leading pre-election promise as early as in the summer of 2020” and had won the elections “largely by popular support of this promise,” citing over 80 percent of citizens favoured European integration.

“Georgians are confident that our impressive record of reforms; our commitment to democracy despite our war-torn society; our advantageous comparison to both fellow bidders for EU membership and EU membership candidate states; and, above all, our country’s history and culture qualify Georgia for the candidate status for EU membership,” the two lawmakers said.

The Georgian officials also said they hoped the EU would take a “merit-based” decision on the candidate status for Georgia “in the spirit” of Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, which lays out the requirements for a new state to join the Union.