Georgia will not put on the agenda the issue of opening negotiations on accession to the European Union until the end of 2028, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said at a briefing.
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“Today we have decided not to put on the agenda the issue of opening negotiations with the EU (on membership) until the end of 2028, and we are also refusing all budget grants from the EU until the end of 2028,” he emphasized.
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According to the prime minister, the authorities’ duty to history and ancestors is to make the country a full member of the European family, and the government will make every effort to join the EU in 2030. At the same time, he noted that the attempt of some European politicians and bureaucrats to present relations between Brussels and Tbilisi as a one-sided event is categorically unacceptable for the Georgian people. In addition, “the whole cascade of insults coming from these people all these years is unacceptable,” Kobakhidze emphasized.
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The head of government added that Georgia’s ill-wishers have turned the European Parliament into a naked instrument of blackmail and this is the greatest shame of the European Union.
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“European politicians and bureaucrats are using allocated grants and loans for blackmail against Georgia. We all remember how, a couple of weeks before the 2021 elections, they planned to cancel Georgia’s loan of 75 million euros in order to exert illegitimate influence on the elections,” he noted.
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According to Kobakhidze, from a technical point of view, it takes only one and a half to two years from the opening of negotiations to joining the EU, and no one plans to expand the association until 2030. This shows how artificial and therefore extremely offensive the blackmail that some European politicians and bureaucrats are waging against Georgia is.