“We heard the message of veto. And we do hope that it is used, this time for a full reconsideration of what it requires to be a member state of the EU,” said Baiba Braže, Latvian Foreign Minister.

According to the Latvian FM, the EU ministers arrived in Georgia as closest friends of the country.

“We are here as friends, as the closest friends of Georgia. We are not here to become parts of your internal political process. I want to be very clear about that. Since Georgia’s European and NATO aims are established in its constitution. Since more than 80% of Georgians support the objective of joining the EU, we have invested as the Baltic states, and as the Northern Baltic group, enormous amounts of political capital around the EU and NATO table, financial, political and other capital in supporting Georgia’s objective. And I want to be very clear that this interest will remain. We want, and we see Georgia as part of Europe, and as part of the EU. It is European path is important to us. The same as Ukraine’s European path is important to us. Albania’s and other countries’ European paths are important to us.

We are very clear also at the same time with the concerns that we have. The joining of the EU is not just a political objective. It requires very practical steps of adjusting the country, it is the legal system, it is justice system, it is law enforcement system, and many others to the European standards. And that is not involvement in internal politics that are European standards that we all had to fulfill when joining the EU. So it’s nothing anti-Georgian, it’s nothing anti-government in terms of messages that we bring. It’s what we did ourselves. And that’s what is required of all the candidate states. In this respect, it’s very difficult to understand why this particular law on the transparency of foreign influence had to be adopted now.

Yes, we heard the message of veto. And we do hope that it is used, this time, for a full reconsideration of what it requires to be a member state of the EU. So, this is our message today. It’s also the package of other laws that we have a concern. We had a concern about how the demonstrators are treated, the right to peaceful assembly, it’s a basic human right and all governments have to ensure that. This is the main objective of our visit. Friends who are very open and who have vested interests in the Georgian future, but we also want to be clear that there are practical steps that need to be followed,” she said.