Parliament speaker: Georgia meets technical preconditions set by EU for candidate status

Papuashvili also noted that “unfortunately” the “radical” part of the country’s opposition had been trying to convince the European partners not to grant Georgia the candidate status, and stressed that these political groups put their political party interests first, having no values or long-term interests for their country.  Photo: Shalva Papuashvili/Facebook

Agenda.ge, 23 Nov 2022 - 20:58, Tbilisi,Georgia

Georgian parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday said Georgia had satisfied the technical preconditions for the European Union candidate status “long time ago” and in terms of technical readiness, it has been a leader of the associated trio countries of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.

During his official visit to Spain, Papuashvili told the media that the decision of granting the candidate status “generally” had “two dimensions” - technical assessment of the readiness of the country and the “political decision”, stressing the latter had not been “always fair”, as it had been based on different motives. 

Georgia has been an outstanding country by the “objective assessment criteria” of legislative, institutional and political views and the “most important” thing is the “political decision” to be taken by the EU, so the country needs to “convince” the bloc and its member states to take a “positive decision”, the parliament speaker said.

Papuashvili also noted that “unfortunately” the “radical” part of the country’s opposition had been trying to convince the European partners not to grant Georgia the candidate status, and stressed that these political groups put their political party interests first, having no values or long-term interests for their country.