President Zurabishvili of Georgia: We want to find our European family | Actuality

The first Georgian head of state to deliver a speech in the hemicycle for 13 years, President Zurabishvili has called for the reunification of her country with its European family and for Georgia to be granted candidate status for the European Union. by the end of 2023. She stressed that Georgia’s European future starts with its European past and recalled the price the Georgian people paid in the face of Russian aggression.

President Zurabishvili said that granting EU candidate status to Georgia would recognize the Georgian people’s hard fight for their European identity, ensure the protection and security of a Georgia that has known multiple Russian occupations, would help safeguard democracy and cement the country’s role as a pro-European force in the Caucasus.

She says EU recommendations for Georgia to achieve candidate status are already part of our culture, our values ​​and our heritage.

Your recommendations are not foreign ideas imposed on us – as Soviet ideology was. These are mainly Georgian. What you recommend is that Georgia eliminate the vestiges of the totalitarian past and reconnect with itself and its European roots, she said.

President Zurabishvili also stressed that EU candidate status will cement progress in a country marked by recent political polarization and democratic backsliding.

Although we are the first to understand our current shortcomings, we do not want them to overshadow our achievements. This for 30 years – that’s a generation! – we have made extraordinary progress thanks to substantial reforms, said President Zurabishvili.

You can watch the debate here (31.05.2023)