On Tuesday 15 July, the High Representative of the Union, Kaja Kallas announced that the EU would be sending a letter to the Georgian authorities on the same day regarding compliance with the conditions of the visa exemption regime.
“We will be sending (this Tuesday) a letter to Georgia concerning the visa exemption regime. Georgia must meet certain conditions, and if those conditions are not fulfilled within the deadline, we will have to suspend the visa-free regime”, explained Ms Kallas on her arrival at the ‘Foreign Affairs’ Council, during which the situation in the country was discussed.
The High Representative has given Tbilisi until the end of August to comply with the eight recommendations made in the seventh report on the visa suspension mechanism (see EUROPE 13541/9). She said that these recommendations include “the obligation that the Georgian government has to ensure and uphold the protection of fundamental rights of all Georgian citizens, including the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public affairs, as well as the prohibition of discrimination”.
“Seven out of eight opposition leaders have been imprisoned. This does not really correspond” to the obligation, Ms Kallas noted. “We don’t want to hurt the Georgian people, and taking away the visa-free regime has a real impact on them. But at the same time, it’s also an issue of credibility of the EU”, she explained.
At the end of January, the EU had already decided to tighten visa requirements for Georgian diplomats and officials (see EUROPE 13566/7). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)