Parliament Speaker: all countries' support for Georgia’s EU candidacy “welcome”

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said support from all countries for the European Union to grant its membership candidate status to Georgia was “welcome” on the backdrop of the country being “treated unfairly for a year now” by having been left without the status in 2022.

Papuashvili’s comments followed reports by Rikard Jozwiak, the Brussels correspondent of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who cited unnamed diplomatic sources on Monday in saying Hungary would support the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine only if other EU member states agreed to grant the candidate status to Georgia simultaneously.

Papuashvili refused to comment on the specific report, but said “the main thing is that we welcome all the countries that support the granting of candidate status to Georgia, since Georgia has been treated unfairly for a year now by not having the candidate status while it is in an advanced position in the Associated Trio [with Moldova and Ukraine]”.

Two members of this Trio have the status of candidates, and Georgia and the Georgian people were treated unfairly by an unjust decision. Therefore, the more countries oppose this injustice and demand that it be eliminated, the better. I think we all welcome this”, he concluded.