Hungary’s FM Visits Tbilisi, Says EU Should Grant Visa-Free Travel to Georgia ‘Immediately’

There is no reason to delay EU visa waiver for Georgia and it should be finalized “immediately”, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on July 27.

He is visiting Tbilisi where he was invited as a guest participant of annual gathering of Georgian diplomats.

Szijjártó told journalists after meeting his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Janelidze on the sideline of the ambassadorial meeting that Hungary remains committed to supporting Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration

“Georgia should be provided with visa-free regime of the EU immediately, and when I say immediately I mean immediately, because the Georgian government has fulfilled all the necessary requirements and there is no reason to suspend [granting of] visa-free regime,” said the Hungarian Foreign Minister, who also met Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili on July 27.

Last-minute objection from Germany in June dashed Tbilisi’s hopes to finalize EU visa liberalisation process this summer, delaying it at least till autumn. Slovakia’s Foreign Minister, Miroslav Lajčák, whose country took over six-month long rotating EU presidency this month, said on July 12 that the Slovak EU presidency has “an ambition to complete” Georgia’s EU visa liberalisation process before the October 8 parliamentary elections in Georgia.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister also said in Tbilisi that his country wants Georgia “to be invited in NATO as soon as possible.”

“We wanted to provide Georgia with Membership Action Plan already [at the NATO summit] in Warsaw [in early July]; unfortunately we did not succeed, but both the EU and NATO integration process must be accelerated,” said Szijjártó, who also reiterated support for Georgia’s territorial integrity.

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