Georgia's Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili travelled to Brussels on Tuesday 28 March to celebrate the liberalisation of visas for citizens of his country. Symbolically, he is the first Georgian citizen to have entered the Schengen Area without a visa – something all citizens of his country will now be able to do (from 28 March) for short stays in the EU.
"This is a historic day. It is an important stage in building even closer EU-Georgia ties", European Council President Donald Tusk stated at a press conference with the prime minister. At another press conference, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said it was "the start of a big success story". Kvirikashvili said it was a "historic success", and the aim of obtaining visa liberalisation had given an impulse for deep reform and was a "strong incentive for further results in the direction of the EU". He added at a press conference with Jean-Claude Juncker that his country’s support for European integration was "very strong". Kvirikashvili told Tusk and Juncker that "full implementation of the EU-Georgia association agreement" was his government’s "top priority".
Tusk said that the EU was opening its borders to Georgia, which has a neighbour that is helping create new borders to restrict Georgians’ freedom, even within its own sovereign borders. He was referring here to Russia. He underlined his concerns about closure of border points along the administrative border with Abkhazia (see EUROPE 11734) and reaffirmed the EU’s support for a peaceful solution with the regions of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
On a completely different subject, Tusk welcomed the Georgian government’s commitment to bring about pluralism in developments connected with the Rustavi 2 television channel (see EUROPE 11741). He pointed out that the EU attached great importance to pluralism in the media and expected tangible steps to ensure this pluralism.
Kvirikashvili and European leaders discussed the upcoming Eastern Partnership summit, which he said would take place in November 2017. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)