Hungarian PM: not granting Georgia EU candidacy “discriminatory”

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday said the European Council’s decision in June not to grant Georgia a membership candidate unlike Ukraine and Moldva was “discriminatory”. 

“A very bad decision was announced in Brussels, which was discriminatory. It cannot be justified morally and it is a harmful decision”, he said at the press conference with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili in Budapest. 

Hailing Orban as a “vocal supporter” of Georgia, Garibashvili claimed that his government was doing “its utmost” for the country’s membership candidate status. 

“Georgia firmly pursues its European path. Our economy is developing, we have double-digit economic growth, we must do our best to bring our country even closer to Europe and European structures as soon as possible. We want to become a full-fledged, worthy member of the European family and also a member of NATO”, Garibashvili said. 

Speaking about Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, the Georgian official stated that “the war in Ukraine, of course, is absolutely unacceptable. We support Ukraine on all platforms. Our desire is for this war to end as soon as possible and our task should be to stop this deadly war as soon as possible”. 

Signing a strategic partnership declaration with Georgia, Orban stated that his country was interested in receiving electricity from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Romania.