Parliament Speaker: time for EU to grant Georgia membership candidate status “without delay”

Georgia has made its move and now it is the time for the European Union to grant membership candidate status to the country without delay, given the current geopolitical pressures, Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, said on Tuesday in a letter addressed to Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament.

I, personally, my party Georgian Dream, which governs Georgia now and every nine out of ten Georgians firmly believe the European Union to be the family and historic destination for our people,” the Parliament official said.

In his official letter, Papuashvili stressed a “wider context” of Georgia's application for membership should be “more relevant than any matter” related to the “present political moment,” pointing out that the “impressive progress” that independent media had achieved in Georgia in the past decade as a result of the country's “democratic transformation” should be kept in mind.

We formally applied for EU membership three months ago, and the entire country is gripped in anticipation of the decision of the European Council later this month. Rarely did any other political matter so emotionally tie our nation together before, as our application for EU membership and the expected response from the EU member states,” the head of the Georgian legislative body said.

Papuashvili also noted that every Georgian government and opposition party in the past three decades since independence had agreed over the country's European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations while “broadly diverging on many domestic issues”. 

We have successfully manoeuvred through several challenging tasks of pursuing European integration, building democracy at home, and confronting near-permanent Russian aggression at the same time. At each stage, the prospects ol joining the EU has only helped and encouraged democratic reforms,” he noted.

The Parliament official also focused on the security cooperation between Georgia and the European Union by saying that in the past decade, Georgia proved itself to be a “valued and reliable” partner with its “responsible” foreign and security policy, which helped to maintain stability in the Caucasus and broader region.

Georgia has made its move. It is the time for the EU to make its bid and grant candidate status for EU membership without delay given the current geopolitical pressures. Meanwhile, a steadfast and unequivocal backing from the European Parliament towards Georgia, together with Moldova and Ukraine, and calls for the European leaders to support our countries, are vital and we look forward to such support,” the Parliament Speaker concluded.