The Daily Beat: 11 April

According to the Parliament’s press release, Speaker Shalva Papuashvili is in Central Asia on an official visit until 13 April.  Accompanied by the parliamentary delegation, Speaker Papuashvili has met with high-ranking officials from the executive and legislative branches of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, mostly discussing bilateral trade-economic relations and transport-logistics cooperation.

The coalition of twelve local CSOs presented the interim report “Status Meter,” assessing the government’s progress in implementing the nine conditions set for Georgia by the European Commission. The CSOs say that the government has not taken any “serious steps” in the past five months to meet the nine conditions, pointing out only the “slight progress” on two conditions.

In his remarks to the media at the CSO event, the EU Ambassador to Georgia Paweł Herczyński said, “Time is running short,” and Georgia should implement all nine steps defined by the European Commission “as quickly as possible.” The Ambassador also commented on the re-tabled Foreign Agents Bill, saying, “Simply, this law is not okay,” further adding, “This is not a European law. This is not American law” and it is “incompatible with the EU norms and values.”

On April 10, President Salome Zurabishvili established the Selection Commission for the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) Board members and held its first working meeting. The Commission agreed on the procedure for selecting candidates, the evaluation criteria, and the work schedule. There are four vacancies in the Board of the National Bank of Georgia.

The Interview of the Day

As Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze visits Berlin and is due to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on 12 April, Anton Hofreiter, Chairman of the German Bundestag’s EU Affairs Committee, shared with Civil.ge his views on how the developments unfolding in Georgia, including the re-introduction of the so-called Foreign Agents’ law, might impact the country’s EU integration, what messages the Georgian Prime Minister is expected to receive during his visit to Berlin, what Georgia should do to ensure its upgrade from a candidate to an EU member and other issues.