European Commission consideration of Georgia’s EU candidate bid underway - Foreign Minister
Zalkaliani said the initial stages of the country’s membership application - signed earlier this month by the Government head - had gone through in an “unprecedented” speed. Photo: MFA of Georgia
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The European Commission’s consideration of Georgia’s bid for European Union membership has started, with the country awaiting the next development “in the near future”, Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said on Monday.
Zalkaliani said the initial stages of the country’s membership application - signed earlier this month by the Government head - had gone through in an “unprecedented” speed.
“We really carried out all the procedures that depended on us very quickly. The application was filed, sent to the EU and also the acceptance from the EU was very positive,” he noted.
It is safe to say that the speed and procedures that our application went through were unprecedented. Now the issue is already being considered by the European Commission,” the top Georgian diplomat explained.
Zalkaliani noted the next necessary step in the process was the questionnaire that Georgia would receive from EU authorities, and underlined the foreign office had started working on an action plan and its own steps to make the process as efficient as possible.
We, as never before, need to be fully consolidated within the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working for a while on the action plan, on the next steps, [on] what steps should be taken to make this process as efficient as possible and end it with a favourable result for us,” the Minister concluded.
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The defence partnership between the Untied Kingdom and Georgia was discussed on Tuesday during a meeting between Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili and James Heappey, the UK Parliamentary Secretary of State for the Armed Forces.
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The Georgian Government will receive the European Union membership questionnaire, the next step in its process of application to join the Union, today from Oliver Varhelyi, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.