The EU Ambassador, Pawel Herczynski, expressed the EU’s desire to welcome Georgia as a member as quickly as possible.

He emphasized the importance of Georgia implementing reforms to become a stronger, stable, and democratic country.

“I can only encourage all authorities to accelerate work. Obtaining EU membership is a lengthy and complicated process, but not necessarily a long process when it comes to timelines. This all depends on how quickly Georgia implements reforms. These reforms have been set not to please Brussels or anyone else, they have been identified in order to make Georgia a stronger, stable, democratic country. So it’s in the interest of Georgia itself to implement those reforms and to be ready to enter the European Union. Georgia needs to implement those reforms because otherwise, if unprepared, it will disrupt the way the European Union is functioning, and all the benefits of membership of the European Union will not be realized. So all those reforms are absolutely necessary. We want to see Georgia as a strong, stable country with very strong, well-functioning professional institutions. And we want to welcome Georgia as a member of the European Union as quickly as possible.

So yes, the work should accelerate. We as the European Union delegation here in Tbilisi are ready to help with all the instruments at our disposal. Intensive contacts between relevant authorities and colleagues in Brussels are ongoing. And I’m really hopeful that in spite of elections that are coming in October that of course will devote a lot of attention, in parallel, very hard work will be ongoing in order to introduce necessary reforms in order to move forward on nine steps so that as soon as possible we can move to the next stage in the European integration process and open accession negotiations,” the Ambassador stated.