“The EU-Georgia relationship is at the lowest level,” said Pawel Herczynski, EU Ambassador to Georgia.
According to him, reforms are not being implemented and steps have been taken that are distancing Georgia from the EU.
“My role is not to comment on the comments of others. My role as EU ambassador is to present the position of the European Union. This is what I have been doing since day one of my arrival, and this is what I will be doing. Of course, I would love to praise the authorities for the reforms. I would love to say positive things about the developments in Georgia, but unfortunately, when it comes to the EU-Georgia relationship, we are currently at the lowest level. There are no high-level visits. We have stopped financial assistance to the government. We have introduced visa restrictions for the holders of diplomatic passports, and we are redirecting our support from supporting the government into supporting civil society and independent media, which by the way, have to operate in increasingly difficult conditions.
My role as an EU ambassador is to present to the public what is the state of the relationship between the EU and Georgia. As the EU ambassador, of course, I wish we were in a different place. However, as we unfortunately all know, the situation is extremely challenging at the moment.
But, as the European Union, we have decided in December 2023 to open our doors for Georgia, provided that reforms are implemented. As we see, most of those reforms are not being implemented. On the contrary, steps have been taken that bring Georgia not closer to the European Union, but further away from the European Union. This is, of course, very regrettable, but this is the current state of affairs when it comes to the EU-Georgia relationship,” Pawel Herczynski said.
