Latvian PM, Slovenian FM laud Georgia’s expected EU candidacy

Krišjānis Kariņš, the Latvian Prime Minister, and Tanja Fajon, the Slovenian Foreign Minister, on Monday lauded the European Commission’s positive recommendation last week for Georgia’s European Union membership candidate status in December.

Speaking in Brussels on the sidelines of an EU ministerial, Kariņš said the Georgian Government had “accelerated the [country’s] movement towards the EU” and called it a “good” development. 

I strongly support the [European Commission’s] recommendation for Georgia’s candidate status. Of course, now it is dependent on the country’s Government to take next steps”, he said. 

For her part, Fajon said it was a “good moment to make Europe stronger”, and added the Commission's move to recommend Tbilisi’s candidacy, and the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, meant “we all should take important steps towards the EU, when these countries are ready”. 

In its final report last week, the European Commission said it was recommending the EU candidacy for Tbilisi with nine conditions, ranging from efforts to combat disinformation and foreign information manipulation about the EU and its values, to further alignment of the country’s foreign and security policies with the bloc, to reforms in the judiciary, electoral and human rights areas.

The conditions also include ensuring a systemic approach to deoligarchisation, additional efforts for depolarising the domestic political environment and improvements to the Parliament's oversight function.