Georgian PM praises Gov’t “hard work” for EU visa-free travel on anniversary

Georgia’s Government did “a lot of work” to achieve visa-free travel with the European Union for its citizens, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said at Monday’s Government meeting on the fifth anniversary of the agreement.

Garibashvili expressed gratitude to “everyone who has contributed to achieving” abolition of the visa requirement for EU travel in 2017, noting Georgian nationals had paid over 1.5 million visits to countries of the Union since.

The PM called the figure a “concrete, tangible result after the signing of the [2014] Association Agreement with the EU.”

We started this process in 2013, when we were given a visa-free regime action plan. Then the government did a lot of work [...] The EU considered it satisfactory, and right after that [...] in about a year, the EU visa regime was lifted, and our citizens [have] enjoyed visa-free travel to EU countries,” Garibashvili said in comments on the anniversary.

Garibashvili underlined that the Georgian Government spared no effort to effectively implement "irreversible" European choice of Georgian people.

Today marks the 5th anniversary of #visafree regime with ????????- historic achievement and another step on ????????'s European integration path. Our Gov't spares no effort to effectively implement irreversible European choice of Georgian people ultimately leading to country's ???????? membership! pic.twitter.com/HcZ9Ety5g6

— Irakli Garibashvili (@GharibashviliGe) March 28, 2022