Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili Monday echoed European Commission’s recent recommendation to greenlight EU candidate status for Ukraine and Moldova, while Georgia should meet certain conditions first. Until then, it benefits from a ‘European perspective.’

The PM believes the Commission made a ‘historic’ decision, pledging the Georgian government will kick off working on them in due course when recommendations are approved.

He stressed most of the recommendations were already on Georgia’s agenda, vowing “there are other issues we will clarify with Brussels, work on them and get candidate status.”

” I wish to clarify to our fellow citizens the following: Moldova and Ukraine have an absolutely identical entry in terms of European Perspective, i.e. Opinions of the European Commission on these countries also include a recommendation to the European Council to grant them a status, perspective and status as well. That is, status is given to them in advance in real terms. It is an incentivising advance for Ukraine, which is in the heaviest war and for Moldova, which is also in a very hard condition. At the same time, they are also requested – urged – to carry out a number of reforms. In our case it is the other way round: we should first meet all the conditions that are laid out in the Opinion of the European Commission, carry out these reforms, implement the priorities and Georgia will be granted the status afterwards, of course.

We understand it well that Ukraine is in the most difficult condition. It has already lost 20% of its territories and war continues. Moldova is also in the hardest situation as well. If anyone was damaged by this war, it was Moldova as one of the first affected countries, because it is a neighbouring state and a lot of refugees and displaced persons found shelter there. Moldova experienced a significant rise in the economic and security risks as well.

Our European colleagues were telling me and I openly conveyed that Ukraine is given this status because it is at war. You have seen yourself that several days ago European leaders were publicly confirming this fact, stating that this decision was made because Ukraine is at war. They were saying the same in private conversations with me, thereby noting that Moldova is also in a very difficult condition. Thus, I truly do not envy either Ukraine or Moldova. I wish to congratulate our friendly Ukrainian and Moldovan people on this success. I want to wish them peace and unification of the country,” the PM asserted.

Garibashvili stressed all the “tangible achievements” related to Georgia’s integration into the European Union are “the merit of the Georgian Dream and Bidzina Ivanishvili [GD founder],” the Association Agreement, Free Trade Agreement, visa-free regime and now the European perspective and candidate status, among them.