Page 38 - Candidate Status News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Charles michel is head of the european council. all of that did not make all the conditions for this granting to be immediate. yeah. but as i said before, what is important now, we have 12 recommendations of the european union, and i think that it's vital that in 2023, georgia is granted the candidate status, which doesn't mean membership. we'll have other criteria, more things to fulfil, more reforms to make. but in a strategic manner, it's important that the eu says georgia is part of this trio which we have created, and not something outside that could be an attraction for russia to play ga...

The democratic reforms, that it's not important. sure. but i think that at this moment, what is predominant is the strategic issue and the risks of giving to russia the wrong message about georgia. all right. do you think the european union really wants georgia? because i tell you what the former deputy chair of the ruling georgian dream party, tamar chugoshvili, said in august, who says, "the party's leadership "has been stating repeatedly that the eu "has never intended to grant candidate status to georgia. "no matter what the authorities do, "such status will not be granted." does the eu wa...

Rallies in georgia. you've attended them yourself. you're very firmly pushing georgia towards that western european camp. so how disappointed were you when that decision was made? i was disappointed. the georgian population was disappointed. but at the same time, i think i understood and we understood that there was a specific situation of ukraine. ukraine got us where we are, with the european perspective and at the door of the candidate status, which was not expected at this stage in our relations with the european union. and it's clear that it has a link with the political situation, with t...

To what happens next. but before we get there, you talk about regional issues, you talk about identity. i just wonder whether you worry that because europe right now is so preoccupied with the war in ukraine, and ukraine, of course, has now been given candidate status for the european union, whether you worry that little north macedonia is going to still be left on the sidelines because the eu now has ukraine front and centre of its attention. i cannot agree with this, because we started the negotiations with the european union onjuly 19th. two days before that, we made decision in the parliam...

But now, after the new geostrategic situation which we have in europe, and after the invasion of russia on ukraine, and after all the security, energy and economic issues which are at stake in europe, it is clear and it has been confirmed by all the leaders of the european union, starting from president macron, chancellor scholz, the president of the european commission, madame von der leyen, that european union is not complete without the western balkans, without north macedonia, without albania, montenegro and all the other countries. and this is the reality. yes, but you've been in the queu...