Georgian PM says EU integration “main foreign policy priority” for Gov’t

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday said European integration is a “constitutional task” and the “main foreign policy priority” of his Government.

Kobakhidze told Imedi TV channel the integration is the “choice of the Georgian people”, adding “everything will be done” to fulfil tasks related to accession to the European Union.

There have been a lot of difficulties along the way, especially during the two to three years [...] we were unfairly denied the membership candidate status in June 2022, then we lived in a regime of artificial [domestic political] polarisation for a year and a half, [and] much injustice was hovering over our country, although we took a dignified position, and it was at the expense of this that, in the end, we managed to get the candidate status of the EU [in 2023]”, he said in the interview.

There will be similar difficulties over the next year, and I will repeat once again that these difficulties will also be related to the war [in Ukraine] that is being waged in our region”, he added.

The head of the Government also pledged the country would “continue to advance” on European integration “very straightforwardly” and claimed it would achieve full EU membership “by 2030”.