Parliament committee chair calls on opposition to engage EU conditions implementation “if they want European future”

Nikoloz Samkharadze, the Georgian parliament's foreign affairs committee chair, on Friday said the domestic opposition should become engaged in working groups for meeting European Union conditions for granting Georgia the membership candidate status “if they want a European future” for the country. 

In his remarks over the matter, Samkharadze claimed the “main task” of the opposition was to prevent the country from receiving the status.

Georgia will have no European future in their hands. These people have proved that they are against law, order, institutions and the country by the actions they have committed over the last two years - I mean the processes after the 2020 parliamentary elections. [...] [A]ll this is not in harmony with Europe and the West”, the parliament official said.

Their main task is to prevent Georgia from receiving the membership candidate status and to hinder this process in every possible way. [...] Their tasks do not change, they just resort to different tactics to deceive the public as if they are fighting to save the European future”, he concluded in his comments.

On October 4, Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili said his government would fulfil “all conditions” outlined by the EU for granting the country the membership candidate status.

Garibashvili noted the government was “engaged and highly motivated” to implement the 12 recommendations “as soon as possible”.

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.