German Bundestag members, Robin Wagener, Thomas Hucker, and Knut Abraham, held a joint press point on Wednesday covering EU-related topics.

Asked about the visa-free regime, Robin Wagener said: “The people of Georgia want to be part of the European Union and we want them to be able to travel to Europe to experience the European Union and see what it is like living in the European Union; this [visa-free travel suspension] would not be the right answer at this moment.”

In Thomas Hucker’s words, “the best way to get to know each other is to travel, especially for the youth people, young people, for education purposes, for work purposes and I think we do not want to stop this [visa-free travel] which is necessary to bring different people together.”

Knut Abraham added: “I strongly advise not to touch the visa-free regime for the population. It has been a great achievement in 2006 and it was a hard fight not because of technical aspects, [but] because it was a political signal that you belong to us. It is easy to abolish an achievement like that but it is extremely difficult, almost impossible to reinstall it and I fear that with a step like that, we would do the business of circles of people who are not interested in the European future of Georgia.”