Parliament committee chair: “ultimate goal” of gov’t is to join EU

Maka Botchorishvili, the chair of the Georgian parliament’s European Union integration committee, on Tuesday said the “ultimate goal” of the Georgian authorities was to see the country join the EU, and the “most important” thing was to make “rapid progress” on this path.

In her remarks over the matter, Botchorishvili noted the group of members of the European parliament who “actively support” Georgia's accession to the EU was “quite large”.

“The group of MEPs who actively support the idea of Georgia joining the European Union and are ready to contribute to this process is quite large. Of course, the issue of implementation of the [EU] conditions is relevant, since this is a kind of guide for Georgia to make further progress in its relations with the European Union”, the parliament official said.

Together with our European colleagues, we are discussing how this process is going, what challenges we face in this process, and how we can achieve success together so that Georgia receives the status of a candidate country. Our ultimate goal is to join the European Union, and the most important thing is that we make rapid progress on the path to joining the European Union”, she concluded.

Josep Borrell, the European Union high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, on Tuesday said the implementation of the 12-point conditions for obtaining the EU membership candidate status was not only the Georgian government’s job but “everyone”, including citizens, should stand together to fulfil the recommendations.

• EU high representative: implementation of European Commission recommendations not only govt's job, everyone should stand together

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 would be addressed by the Georgian Government.