FM lauds Gov’t EU Integration Commission’s “huge efforts”, “effective work”

Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili on Monday highlighted “huge efforts” by the country’s Government for its European integration and “effective work” of its European Integration Commission, chaired by Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

In his press comments after the Commission’s 70th meeting, Darchiashvili said the work would ensure “concrete, tangible” results in December through the country’s obtaining of the European Union membership candidate status. 

The official hailed the Commission as a “very effective mechanism”, and said it had adopted a “very important” action plan earlier during the day to implement specific conditions outlined by the European Commission in June 2022 for granting Tbilisi the bloc’s membership candidate status, as well as in its positive recommendation to the European Council to grant Georgia the status in December. 

The Commission earlier this month said it was recommending the EU candidacy for Tbilisi with nine conditions for opening accession talks with the bloc later, with the priorities 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 - a number of them from the original 12-point reform agenda - also include ensuring a systemic approach to deoligarchisation, additional efforts for depolarising the domestic political environment and improvements to the Parliament's oversight function. 

Pledging to continue “close coordination” with the European Commission after adopting the action plan, the FM claimed the “main spirit” of the document was that the Government expressed its readiness to “cooperate closely with all interested parties” for the country’s further integration into the bloc. 

Pointing to related platforms and working groups initiated by the authorities to ensure discussions and internal cooperation for Georgia’s EU integration, Darchiashvili stressed the Government was “willing and interested” in ensuring inclusiveness of the process.  

He also said the domestic Commission had endorsed a “large-scale” and “in-depth” action plan for deoligarchisation, one of the recommendations issued by the European Commission, and noted considering the “systemic” approach to the issue - as recommended by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe earlier this year - had led to the document including “complex reforms”.