“It was disrespect not to grant Georgia candidate status” - Garibashvili meets with Orban

Garibashvili meets with Orban

According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban after a meeting with Irakli Garibashvili, the refusal to grant Georgia the status of EU candidate was “discriminatory”. The Prime Minister of Georgia left yesterday for an official visit to Budapest.

“Our guest and his country have earned candidate status because they have worked hard for many years. Such a decision was disrespectful to Georgia. We will continue to support Georgia in obtaining candidate status and joining the European Union as soon as possible, and we will attract experts,” Orban said.

For his part, Irakli Garibashvili expressed “great respect” for his colleague, adding that Georgia takes its example from successful Hungarian reforms.

According to the Prime Minister of Georgia, Hungary has been successful “especially under the leadership of Mr. Orban and during his tenure.”

“We want to get closer in different directions. We see potential not only in trade and tourism, but also in energy,” Garibashvili said.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has led the country since 2010 and is considered the leader of the “anti-liberal” bloc in Europe. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Orban joined the EU sanctions against Russia and accepted 360,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country, although he refused to place weapons allocated to help Ukraine in his country.

Before the 2022 elections, Orban called the opposition a “party of war” because it supports the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and presented himself as a “peace candidate.” The Hungarian Prime Minister even accused Ukraine of participating in the election campaign in favor of the opposition.

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A similar narrative can be found in the ruling Georgian Dream party regarding the opposition: the Georgian authorities also tend to call opponents the “party of war” and accuse the Ukrainian government of subversive activities against the Georgian government.

Another similarity between the governments of Georgia and Hungary is that the Hungarian opposition claims that pro-Orban media outlets operate according to “Kremlin propaganda recipes” and that what they say is “not relevant to the facts.”

On July 13, it became known that Georgia will receive a deferment to evaluate the implementation of 12 recommendations of the European Commission developed as conditions for obtaining the status of an EU candidate country. The EU will evaluate the implementation of the recommendations in 2023, and not at the end of 2022, representative of the European Commission Michael Rupp said in the European Parliament.

On June 17, the European Commission prepared a report on granting Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidates for EU membership. It was decided that Ukraine and Moldova would receive this status, while Georgia would first have to fulfill the 12 points.

Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU candidate country status in March 2022.