“Integration into the European Union requires unanimity and we all have already heard several member states publicly stating that they will oppose opening accession negotiations with Georgia,” said EU Ambassador to Georgia, Pawel Herczynski.
According to the Ambassador, the EU, next week, will decide about the consequences if the Georgian law on Transparency of Foreign Influence is enacted.
“When it comes to EU-Georgia relations, with huge regret, I have to tell you that we are currently undergoing a difficult period in our relationship. We have said repeatedly that enacting a law on foreign influence would adversely affect Georgia’s EU aspirations. Unfortunately, this has happened.
Next week, the European Union will discuss the consequences, discussions will happen first at the level of foreign ministers, and several days later at the level of the leaders. So the presidents and prime ministers will discuss and decide what measures we will take in response to those events in Georgia.
For sure, the prospects of Georgia moving forward have been adversely affected. Basically, the adoption of this law, as I see, has frozen Georgia’s EU integration. As you know, integration into the European Union requires unanimity and we all have already heard several member states publicly stating that they will oppose opening accession negotiations with Georgia in case this law is enacted. It has been enacted, and consequences will be decided next week,” he said.
When asked what versions the European Union would consider against Georgia after the enactment of the law, Pawel Herczynski said:
“I cannot pre-empt the discussion that will happen next week among foreign ministers and then among prime ministers, presidents. We need to wait what measures will be chosen by member states and what measures will be implemented. What I can say is that, as the European Commission and European External Action Service, we have provided a menu to member states and it will be for the member states to decide what measures from that menu will be chosen,” he said.
When asked whether the EU is also thinking about imposing visa restrictions after the US, the Ambassador answered that the tools that the EU could employ are different from the US.
“The United States is a close and like-minded partner of the European Union. We tried to coordinate our positions across all the issues. However, we are very different. And the instruments that we can employ are very different for obvious reasons. The European Union is an inter-governmental institution of 27 sovereign countries. Sometimes the US acts much quicker than we do. Again, we coordinate, we share information, but our actions usually are not identical and they don’t need to be identical,” he said.
