Georgia needs consensus to meet EU conditions for candidacy – EU commissioner

Oliver Varhelyi, the European Union commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement said on Tuesday that Georgian political stakeholders need consensus to meet the 12-point conditions set by the bloc in June to grant the country its membership candidate status. 

“I hope all political parties will see that this is a unique opportunity, a unique offer for Georgia. It will be a pity if you can not use this chance,” he said at a press conference with Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili in Tbilisi. 

He stated that the conditions did not concern “any individuals” as it was a systemic framework – offering legal basis for systemic changes, in reference to the de-oligarchization bill. 

The EU official also praised the Georgian authorities for taking actions to meet the EU  candidacy recommendations and spoke about the importance of joint projects. 

“One of the important projects is the deep-sea digital cable that will connect our main networks. Here too, a permanent connection will be established between us”, he said and noted that “this will be the first major project that we will implement and we will see the results soon. I hope that we can speed up the work on the deep-sea power cable, and I also hope that more new ideas will appear in the future”. 

For his part Garibashvili claimed that the current authorities had ensured all “genuine progress” for the country’s European integration since 2012 and cited the EU-Georgia Association Agreement, free trade and visa free agreements and the country’s European perspective. 

He pledged that his government was acting for Georgia’s EU membership candidate status and slammed the part of the country’s opposition for being “destructive”  and creating obstacles for the country’s European future.