EU Commission for Migration and Home Affairs Visits Georgia

EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, is visiting Tbilisi on April 2.

He met PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili; Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili; Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze; Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani; Deputy Interior Minister Archil Talakvadze, as well as leaders of the United National Movement and Free Democrats opposition parties. He also met head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II.

On March 9 the European Commission put forth a legislative proposal to allow short-term visa-free travel to the Schengen area for Georgian citizens. But before it can go into force, the proposal has to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of European Union, a body representing the executive governments of the EU member states.

“I sincerely hope that the Council and the European Parliament in months to come will adopt our proposal. I hope that this will be done very, very soon,” Commissioner Avramopoulos said after meeting with the Georgian PM in Tbilisi on April 2.

The Georgian PM said: “We are especially grateful that the European Commission has assessed reforms in Georgia very positively and initiated separately a legislative proposal to allow Georgian citizens short-term visa-free stay [in the Schengen area].”

The PM did not elaborate about “separately initiated legislative proposal” concerning Georgia, but he was apparently alluding to the fact that it was not informally coupled with Ukraine’s visa liberalisation, at least by the European Commission.

“We hope that the European Parliament and the Council will be guided by the assessments made by the European Commission and take a relevant decision based on progress made by Georgia,” PM Kvirikashvili said.

Meanwhile in Washington, Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili met on the sideline of the Nuclear Security Summit President of the European Council Donald Tusk and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

“We believe that short-term visa-free rules for Georgia will be an incentive for other EU partner states, that will show that reforms bring tangible [results] and the states will act in line with the ‘more for more’ principle,” President Margvelashvili said, referring to the EU’s declared principle that it would offer greater incentives to those partners which make more progress in democratic reforms.