EU ambassador calls for “speeding up” efforts for meeting two conditions for bloc’s candidacy

Pawel Herczynski, the European Union Ambassador to Georgia, on Tuesday said Tbilisi needed to “speed up” efforts for meeting two of 12 conditions for obtaining the bloc’s membership candidate status later this year, which he said included media freedom and deoligarchisation. 

 

In his comments on the sidelines of the conference Georgia’s road to the EU, the diplomat stressed as part of the European Commission’s interim report in June Georgia had “fully met” three of 12 conditions, “partially met” seven, showed “limited progress” on the deoligarchisation and “no progress” on media pluralism. 

 

Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling party, claimed the bloc needed to provide “clearer position” on the condition related to deoligarchisation, citing the Venice Commission opinion that advised the Georgian authorities to elaborate a “systemic approach” to the issue, without personification. 

 

“If we do not have concreteness, this issue will remain a kind of open wound”, he said. 

 

Kobakhidze also claimed achieving a depolarised political environment, one of 12 conditions, would also be complicated due to the presence of “radical opposition” in the country.