Georgia dismisses damning EU enlargement report, claims to remain fully committed to accession
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed an EU enlargement report critical of the government as ‘biased’, claiming that it remains ‘fully committed’ to Georgia’s EU accession path.
The Foreign Ministry’s response went out on Tuesday, the same day as the EU enlargement report.
The ministry claimed that Georgia remained ‘fully committed to the agreements signed with the EU and continues to honour its obligations under the Association Agreement in good faith, with the goal of further aligning the country with the European standards’.
It additionally expressed concern that the report was used to ‘articulate groundless negative assessments on Georgia and to spread further political speculations’.
The ministry then reiterated previous remarks made by the government and the ruling Georgian Dream party criticising the EU and its institutions for their ‘persisting silence […] with regard to the events that took place in Tbilisi during the municipal elections held on 4 October’ — a reference to the attempted storming of the Presidential Palace by protesters in Tbilisi.
‘Moreover, the joint statement by the [EU Top Diplomat] Kaja Kallas and Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos creates ground for misleading interpretations’, the ministry continued, referring to a statement issued by Kallas and Kos calling on Tbilisi to uphold rights to freedom of assembly and expression following the local elections.
Yousef Bardouka
‘Against the background of improving Georgia’s positioning in various global indexes, including in terms of government integrity, bureaucracy and fight against corruption, well-functioning government, as well as evident stable macro-economic environment and high economic growth, serious questions arise regarding objectivity of assessments given in the Commission’s report’, the ministry said.
It added that the EU’s ‘actions and statements’ were a ‘matter of concern, as they aim to influence the internal politics of the country’.
‘We condemn all attempts directed towards using the issue of EU accession as a political instrument, which harm the relations between the EU and Georgia’, the ministry said.
The statement was issued following a damning EU assessment of Georgia’s EU accession progress, calling Georgia a ‘candidate country in name only’.
Kos has later said that the commission report on Georgia was ‘the worst enlargement report for any candidate country ever, but rightly so’.
‘They are saying that they are bringing Georgia closer to the EU, [but] they are bringing Georgia away from the EU, so it is a clear backsliding on many, many areas, especially on the fundamentals, the rule of law, anti-corruption, media freedom’, she said.
‘The only option is that the government of Georgia will revise many, many laws which are clearly anti-European, they should stop putting their political opponents or journalists in jail, they really should start not oppressing anymore the organisations of civil society.’
OC Media
