Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday expressed the ruling team’s confidence the country would join the European Union before Ukraine and Moldova.
In his remarks over the prospect of opening accession negotiations with the bloc, Kobakhidze noted the decision “must be made” in 2024.
Last year, we deserved not only the candidate status, but also the opening of negotiations. We hope that a fair decision will be made [this time]”, he said in reference to the European Council’s 2022 decision to only award the country a European perspective, before this year’s conclusion on granting it the membership candidate status.
“We have proven that no matter what turbulent political processes we go through, in the end we manage to achieve the goal - this was shown very well in the case of candidate status”, Kobakhidze added.
“There were difficult processes that we concluded with success. We can make the same promise to the public regarding the opening of negotiations. We are sure that we will join the EU before Ukraine and Moldova”, he concluded.
The European Council last week decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova and grant the membership candidate status to Georgia.