“All of these reforms are leading to these values, but also the criteria needed for EU membership. Even if none of these reforms or if the pathway didn’t end up in EU membership, which is completely up for the people to decide, each and every step towards the way serves the people in that candidate country or in that country on their way to European integration,” said the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, during a joint press conference with Maka Botchorishvili at the Georgian Foreign Ministry.

According to her, all steps aimed at integrating into the European Union serve the interests of the country’s population.

“I always tell the EU candidate countries what the European Union membership requires of those countries, in terms of the rule of law, in terms of the democratic process, in terms of the inclusion of all minorities of the society, in terms of building transparency, ridding corruption, having a full market economy, serving the people and not the few. All of these reforms are leading to these values, but also the criteria for EU membership.

Even if none of these reforms or if the pathway didn’t end up in EU membership, which is completely up for the people to decide, each and every step towards the way serves the people in that candidate country or in that country on their way to European integration because it will essentially give more freedom, more power to decide to each and every individual, and also it will give them a more prosperous future  because you would have full engagement also through the market economy and through trade.

This is the future, which, of course, the European Union has been happy to invite Georgia to. And again, let me emphasise, in a democracy, it will be up to the people to decide whether they want to take those steps.

But unfortunately, in recent times, we have observed that the Georgian government has not been willing to take. Many of those steps or some of the steps that the Georgian government has taken have been in the opposite direction, to take away those liberties and not give those liberties where they belong, i.e., to people.

Putting opposition leaders in jail essentially means that the people wouldn’t even have a choice. What comes to an election, even if the technical election in itself was transparent and free, or if you make it more difficult for civil society organizations to fund themselves, then clearly that is not helping the civil society, that is not granting freedoms to an open society, but it is taking away those freedoms.

As a member of the European Union, I can say that Finland would be happy to have Georgia, one day, in the European Union based on these criteria, which I listed. I am more of a question mark, and it will be, again, for the Georgian people to decide what their future is, but they deserve a full inclusion in the decision-making process in this political system,” Elina Valtonen has stated.