Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze remarked on the McCain Institute report saying “A part of Georgian NGOs is asking the European Union to suspend Georgia’s visa-free regime.”
The PM said, “It is no surprise to anybody that the backers of the radical opposition want to punish the Georgian people for the single reason – the Georgian people firmly support the “Georgian Dream” and refuse the radical opposition, the collective “United National Movement.”
“This is probably not surprising to anyone; these people have a political agenda. When visa liberalisation was being discussed for the country, these individuals, representatives of this political group, and relevant non-governmental organisations aggressively opposed it.
Following that, you can recall comparable processes involving the awarding of candidate status, in which these NGOs and political parties explicitly advocated against candidate status.
They did not answer the question of whether the country deserved candidate status, and against the backdrop of this negative campaign, the nation received candidate status,” Kobakhidze said.
