The involvement of civil society in legislative processes and decision-making processes is of key importance for any democratic state, including Georgia, stated EU Ambassador to Georgia Paweł Herczyński.

He noted that “this is why one of the nine steps, step number nine, precisely speaks about the fullest possible involvement of civil society in legislative and decision-making processes”.

“We are really happy to see that Georgia has a very vibrant civil society. There is a huge variety of civil society organizations focusing on different issues. From our point of view, it is extremely important that those civil society organizations are as much as possible involved in legislative and decision-making processes. It is the responsibility of the authorities to find a way in order to involve civil society in the biggest possible way.

Last year, a very positive process of discussions started between the government, the opposition and the civil society. We had several meetings with the participation of opposition parties and civil society that were linked to the Easter Partnership Civil Society platform. Unfortunately, due to some internal developments in the platform, some big civil society organizations have decided to leave the platform. Now, it is the responsibility of the Georgian authorities to find a way in which all civil society organizations, the platform, and also others who have left the platform will be involved and will be able to participate in the legislative and decision-making process.

This is step number nine, and we sincerely hope that civil society in all its different colours and shades will be as much as possible involved both in the decision-making process as well as in the legislative process,” he stated.