The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Ilia Darchiashvili, responded to the statement by the EU Ambassador to Georgia, Pawel Herczynski, regarding the decision of the EU leaders to freeze 30 million euros intended for the Georgian Ministry of Defense.

“Georgia needs to further strengthen its defense capabilities to better address existing threats. We hope that such decisions will soon return to their previous level, allowing us to continue our cooperation with the European Union in this area. Cooperation between Georgia and the European Union is fundamentally based on the association agreement, and we all have our obligations. We are fulfilling these obligations logically and sequentially. I would not characterize the situation as harshly as the EU ambassador did, as these decisions made at a micro level will not impede Georgia’s pursuit of European integration.

Georgia has not halted any processes and consistently advances its reform agenda. We consistently fulfil our commitments to the European Union, which will certainly lead us to our ultimate goal of full EU membership. If there are challenges regarding the initiation of negotiations, I recall that we also faced difficulties in obtaining candidate status, yet we did everything necessary to achieve it. I am similarly optimistic that we will commence negotiations very soon. While negotiations are a lengthy and challenging process, we are ready to guide Georgia irreversibly on the path of European integration,” the Minister stated.