European Parliament’s foreign policy report says future of people of Georgia “lies within EU”

The report highlighted Russia was implementing an “aggressive policy” towards Georgia and Moldova. Photo: Reuters

Agenda.ge, 19 Jan 2023 - 11:51, Tbilisi,Georgia

The European Parliament on Wednesday approved its annual report on the implementation of the common foreign and security policy that said the “future of the peoples of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia as well as the Western Balkans lies within the EU”.

The document reaffirmed the commitment to the European Union’s enlargement, to which it said “there is no alternative”, and which it called “more than ever a geostrategic investment” in a “stable, strong and united” EU. 

The report highlighted Russia was implementing an “aggressive policy” towards Georgia and Moldova.

Georgia was the first country to experience a full-scale Russian military aggression in August 2008, when Russia attempted to forcibly change the borders of a sovereign state in Europe, to occupy regions which are an indivisible part of Georgia - Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia - and take steps towards their de facto annexation, to expel hundreds of thousands of people from their homes as a result of ethnic cleansing and to divide societies with occupation lines”, the report noted.

The European Parliament also urged the European Union to keep demanding that Russia implement its obligations under the EU-mediated 2008 ceasefire agreement that ended the five-day conflict between the two states.

The document also welcomed the granting of EU member candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and called for it to be granted to Georgia, provided that the priorities specified in the European Commission’s opinion are addressed by the country’s authorities.

The report reiterated the EU’s commitment to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia within their internationally recognised borders, and supported their efforts to “fully” enforce these principles.