“The door for Georgia to become a member of the European Union is open. But if the government continues on the same track, and continues doing what they are doing, this door will be closed,” Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission stated  ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg.

“We are going to discuss the situation in Georgia. One thing is clear, the door for Georgia to become a member of the European Union is open. But if the government continues on the same track, and continues doing what they are doing, this door will be closed, and the Georgian people will pay the consequences, and will suffer. The fact that the European Perspective will be diminished or even cancelled. We are talking about serious things. If things continue like this, the door to the European Union will not be open. Today, I present an options paper to the ministers, explaining the different things that we can do in the short and medium term in order to make this not to continuing in Georgia.

There will be no operational decisions today because today is the orientation debate. As I said, I put on the table a full analysis of what we can do, and the ministers will debate about it. So don’t expect concrete decisions. There is a political orientation debate today. But in the short term, there are measures that can be taken, for example, stopping the support through the European Peace facility, stopping the high-level political contacts, or considering stopping some part of the financial support that goes directly to the government.

We don’t want to affect civilians. We don’t want to put more pain on the civilian people. But there are decisions, and they are listed, and at the end of the day, I can tell you, which has been the reaction of the ministers to my proposals,” Josep Borrell stated.