“Accession on hold, this is truly hard,” said the EU Ambassador to Georgia Paweł Herczyński at the opening of the international conference in Tbilisi.
The Ambassador said he hoped that after the October 26 parliamentary elections, the newly formed government would resume serious work for Georgia’s EU integration.
“I sincerely hope that on October 26, Georgians will make the right choice and the future government, whoever wins the elections, will return very quickly and resume hard work towards Georgia’s accession to the European Union. But for now, as leaders decided on June 27, Georgia’s EU membership is on hold at a time when other candidate countries, some in the Western Balkans, as well as Ukraine and Moldova, are moving forward quickly. So, the main issue is whether Georgia can afford to waste this time,” said Paweł Herczyński.
The EU Ambassador believes that Georgia will catch up with other “leading” candidate countries to join the European Union.
“Time is passing and the distance between the leading candidates for joining the European Union and Georgia is not decreasing, unfortunately, it is getting much bigger. On the one hand, we opened negotiations with Moldova and Ukraine on joining the European Union, on the other hand, we stopped the process of Georgia joining the European Union. I hope it’s only temporary. But this is completely in the hands of Georgia and Georgians,” said Paweł Herczyński.
Tbilisi hosts a 2-day conference “EU Enlargement: A geopolitical necessity and the next steps for the EU Candidate States.”
