Parliament Committee Chair: Georgia at “new stage” in EU relations, important to make “full use” of opportunities

Maka Botchorishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s European Union Integration Committee, on Friday said Georgia was at a “new stage” in its relations with the European Union and called for making “full use” of “new opportunities” as part of the EU enlargement policy.

In her remarks over the matter, Botchorishvili noted the working groups created in the Georgian Parliament for the implementation of the conditions issued by the European Commission for granting the country the EU membership candidate status.

Our goal is to show progress soon and the further evaluations [of our work] by the European Commission will be what our integration needs. We will discuss with our [European] partners the dynamics that we expect in the coming months. Visits to Georgia are planned, and we will actively continue the dialogue with various institutions of the European Union”, the Parliament official said.

Botchorishvili also added Georgian authorities were implementing the 2014-signed Association Agreement with the EU, stressing “this is the main document for Georgia to meet the requirements for joining the European Union”.

On June 24, the European Council granted the membership candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, and said it would be ready to grant the same status to Georgia once the outstanding priorities outlined by the European Commission were addressed by the Georgian Government.

On July 1, the ruling Georgian Dream party presented its strategy for fulfilling the 12-point conditions outlined by the European Council.