MEP McAllister in Tbilisi: EU enlargement a merit-based process, Georgia needs to address issues

MEP David McAllister, who held a press conference with Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili in Tbilisi on Wednesday, stated that the EU enlargement was a merit-based process and Georgia needed to address various issues, including de-polarization to receive the candidate status.

“When we talk about Georgia, unfortunately, one word always comes up, that is  polarization, ” said McAllister, who chairs the European Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee.

At the press conference, Zourabichvili disapproved of the Georgian Dream authorities “fighting” with  MEPs and called on the authorities to visit Brussels to take actions for the country to receive EU candidate status by the end of this year.

“This work [to receive the candidate status] should start first in Brussels, and I am still waiting for the government representatives to go there to find out some details with the EU Commission on how several of its recommendations for the status can be addressed,” Zourabichvili said.

She stated that “there are some things that the authorities must not say, including those that the EU expects Georgia to open a second front for Russia.”

The Georgian Dream and government officials have slammed the European Parliament for its recent resolution which called for sanctions on the GD founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, stating that the latter played a “destructive role” in Georgia’s politics and economy and was affiliated with the Kremlin.

Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili sent a letter to the European Commission head earlier this week, urging her to condemn the “unfounded allegations over Ivanishvili.”