Georgia will not be invited to an informal meeting of European Affairs Ministers scheduled to be held on 1–2 September in Copenhagen. The Danish Foreign Ministry confirmed this decision to IPN, citing the Georgian government’s November decision to suspend its EU integration bid until 2028.
Held under the Danish presidency of the Council of the European Union, the meeting will be attended by the European Affairs Minister of all 27 EU member states as well as representatives of EU candidate countries Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, and the Western Balkan countries.
The Danish Foreign Ministry told IPN that the Danish presidency of the EU would ‘follow the precedent set during the Polish presidency’ in not inviting Georgia to EU meetings.
Georgia was previously excluded from a gathering of EU foreign ministers on 7–8 May in Warsaw to discuss ‘the challenges for Europe’s foreign and security policy’.
At the time, EU Ambassador to Georgia Paweł Herczyński told reporters that legislation passed by the ruling Georgian Dream party had brought the country further away from the EU, which would ‘have consequences’.
Yousef Bardouka
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili dismissed the Danish Foreign Ministry’s comments as ‘disinformation’.
‘There has never been any suspension of European integration, especially not on 28 November as they claim. It is disappointing that today we are hearing lies from member states of the EU’, he said.
Papuashvili also said Georgia had not been invited to an upcoming session of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC), which is scheduled to meet in Denmark from 30 November–2 December. He added that a letter from the Danish Parliament’s European Integration Committee informing them of the decision would soon be made public, as well as his response alleging that Georgia’s exclusion was a ‘violation of procedures’ by Denmark.
The main focus of September’s EU Council meeting will be EU enlargement and strengthening the EU’s rule of law ‘toolbox’.
The latest snub comes as relations between the EU and Georgia continue to plummet. In July, the European Commission sent a series of letters to the Georgian government warning that visa-free access to the bloc for Georgians could be suspended unless the country fulfilled key democratic reforms. The commission gave Georgia until 31 August to report on its progress implementing said recommendations.
Eduard Marikashvili
