Speaker: Friendly relations with countries like Slovakia crucial for Georgia’s EU path

The Georgian Parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, said discussions during his official visit to Slovakia will focus on strengthening bilateral parliamentary relations and deepening cooperation in the context of Georgia’s European integration process.

Speaking to journalists before the start of the visit, Papuashvili said he would meet with the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament and other Slovak lawmakers.

“We will discuss, first of all, bilateral parliamentary relations, which we want to deepen further both at the committee level and through exchanges between friendship groups,” Papuashvili stated.

According to him, high-level visits between the two countries have intensified recently, noting that the President of Georgia had also visited Slovakia not long ago.

Papuashvili stressed the importance of maintaining close relations with countries that pursue what he described as a “friendly policy” toward the Georgian people during the European integration process.

“It is important that, against the backdrop of propaganda and aggressive rhetoric that some politically motivated governments within the European Union direct against Georgia, our friends are able to bring common sense into various discussions,” he said.

The Speaker added that Slovakia has demonstrated “a fairly correct attitude” toward Georgia and its citizens, and emphasized the importance of communication with Slovak authorities and parliamentarians so that they can share what he called a “balanced and rational approach” with their European counterparts.

“That kind of common sense is needed both by the European Union itself and, of course, by Georgian-European relations,” Papuashvili said.