The People’s Power party member, Eka Sepashvili, on Thursday, addressed the 12th meeting of the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Association Committee in Brussels, saying “EU-Georgia relation is a very important issue for our democratic development, our country’s development.”

Alluding to the international sanctions imposed on Russia, Sepashvili stressed that “Georgia co-sponsored and aligns all the international declarations which support Ukraine and are against Russia.”

She went on to mention that the customs service “managed to stop more than 2000 sanctioned cargo goods at our border and it was among other countries from and to EU countries, as well.”

“Our government is acting to protect the best interest of our citizens and in this regard we are pursuing just to protect the interest of our citizens, not to harm our economic development and not to harm the welfare level of our country, which is very important for every country, not only for Georgia; let me remind you kindly in this regard, despite this international sanctions, and despite other kind of economic sanctions, even EU countries continue to trade with Russia. Declaring that it, of course, has some pragmatic interest. Even several countries increased bilateral trade with Russia, despite the sanctions and I can refer to Borrell’s statement declaring that some EU countries are trading with India, regarding oil products, which are made by Russian raw materials and this is direct income to the Russian budget and this is coming from EU money to Russian budget indirectly.

And despite some other pragmatic interest, I can remind you of one more trade which is not very easy to explain from the pragmatic view, the EU is trading with Russia on diamonds and last year, the trade of diamonds compared 1 billion euros, that it is approximately one thousand forty-four hundred Russian newest models of tax,” she stated.

Sepashvili also remarked on Russia’s move to resume direct flights to Georgia, saying “This unilateral restoration of a direct flight is Russia’s decision and let me remind you that in 2019 when Russia stopped this flight, EU high officials, US high officials were demanding from Russia not to stop this direct flight and it was against human rights, against discrimination and against Georgia.”

“In 2019, when we already had the war with Russia and 20% of our territories were occupied, in this circumstance, every and whole international society was against stopping these flights. So, what has changed nowadays? Of course, it is war with Ukraine, but we had already this war in 2008 and this war was as important for us as it is now for everybody.

On the other way, let me remind Macron’s declaration when he declared that the EU did not suggest and offer security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine, and that’s why this war is happening. In this regard, if Georgia is under the EU and NATO security umbrella, of course, we will be more brave to make some kind of decision. On the other hand, of course, we totally share European values, European principles, and European policy, which does not harm the interests of our citizens and interest of our state, because peace, stability, and security is the utmost goal for any government and Georgia, as well and I am sure for EU state, as well,” as delivered by Sepashvili.