Ruling party MP Samkharadze: Kos’s remarks effectively seek to restrict candidate countries’ ties with US

Marta Kos’s remarks are significant as they effectively amount to criticism of the current US administration and suggest that close and friendly relations with Washington could be incompatible with EU membership, Georgia’s Parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Nikoloz Samkharadze has said.

Samkharadze was commenting on remarks by EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, who said that countries seeking to join the European Union should sever ties with US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement in order to qualify for membership.

“Put simply, this statement means that countries maintaining friendly relations with the current US administration have no place in the European Union. Marta Kos’s statement is controversial because, for candidate countries, it effectively amounts to restricting close relations with the new US administration,” Samkharadze said.

He added that Donald Trump had been elected president on the basis of the MAGA philosophy and under that slogan.

“Therefore, criticising MAGA effectively means criticising the philosophy and political platform on which the current US administration was elected,” Samkharadze said.