PM confident relations with EU, US will be “rebooted” starting from next year

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Thursday expressed his confidence that the relations with the European Union and the United States would be “rebooted” starting from next year.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Kobakhidze noted the country was “far ahead” of all EU membership candidate countries “by all parameters”, and further pointed out that “but formally we are half a step behind”, calling the development “unfair”.

We are getting closer and closer to a reboot of relations, our elections have already taken place, the Parliament will convene soon, the Government will be formed, and the presidential elections in the United States will also be over soon. It is quite realistic that this war [in Ukraine] will end in January or February. As soon as all this is over, the relationship will be rebooted very quickly. Interests will change and relationships will be rebooted. As for the qualitative reboot, I think that everything will start intensively from the first quarter of next year”, the PM claimed.

Kobakhidze further emphasised that in terms of “democracy and media pluralism”, the situation Georgia had until 2012 under the former United National Movement Government was “roughly the same as it was now” in Ukraine and Moldova.

​​We are outpacing [other] candidate countries. We significantly surpass Moldova and Bosnia. As for Ukraine, in some areas, such as energy, they are ahead of us, but it's unclear what this entails.This war has devastated exactly half of Ukraine's energy generation capacity. The war has destroyed half of what the Ukrainian electricity system would have produced”, he continued.

The Government head highlighted an “unfair” approach towards the country, and further added that “this is unfair, but from next year relations will be rebooted and I think that justice will be fully restored”.