The Speaker of the Parliament Shalva Papuashvili agrees with the interim assessment of the European Commission that Georgia has fulfilled 3 of the 12 recommendations for obtaining the EU membership candidate status.
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“Three out of 12 have been fulfilled and the EU recognized our progress regarding the rest. As you know, the interim report, which was the first of its kind and gave us the opportunity to understand the EU’s definition and approach regarding each recommendation, revealed that we can tick off three recommendations as complete and move on. As for the rest, there is not much left in terms of legislation. There is a matter of the court where the last amendments were not included in the interim report; these amendments have been sent to the Venice Commission for evaluation. The second is a de-oligarchization bill. We tabled it as the European Commission asked us and are holding consultations with Brussels regarding the systemic approach, what they think, what their expectations are… We didn’t hear any major flaws in this regard when we inquired what their expectations are from us; there are no fundamental issues here,” stated the speaker of the parliament.
According to Papuashvili, the final assessment of the implementation or lack thereof of the recommendations is up to the European Commission and the European Council:
“Yes, Georgia already managed to fulfill 3 recommendations. Ukraine only managed 2, and Moldova – 3. Therefore, I think all three countries have a similar pace. The main thing here is the progress Georgia has shown, and besides, there’s enough time until October for the legislative side to be fully implemented.”
On June 22, the European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, presented an oral report, according to which, Georgia had implemented only three out of 12 recommendations, there was some progress in terms of 7 recommendations, and limited progress in one - depolarization. Media was the only area where, as of June 22, the country had made no progress.
One year ago, in June 2022, the European Council granted Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries for EU membership, and in the case of Georgia, only recognized the country’s European perspective. In addition, the European Commission gave recommendations to all three countries to be implemented before moving to the next stage of the accession process. The European Union is ready to grant Georgia candidacy after it fulfills 12 recommendations/priorities. Recommendations include clauses on de-oligarchization, resolving political polarization, conducting judicial reform, strengthening the anti-corruption service, and improving the media environment. The process of formal negotiations on the prospect of fully-fledged membership begins after the country is granted candidate status.
