The Diplomat
A delegation of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, led by its chairman, Antonio Gutiérrez Limones (PSOE), is visiting Georgia, to whose authorities they have reiterated the institution’s support for Georgia to become an official candidate for EU membership.
According to Gutiérrez Limones on his Twitter account, the delegation held contacts in Tbilisi with the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, and with the chairmen of various committees of the House.
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee already approved on 2 November last year, with the sole abstention of Vox, to ask the European Council to grant Georgia the status of candidate country, once it has fulfilled the priorities indicated by the European Commission.
The Upper House considered that, in this way, the Council would demonstrate that it was “living up to its historical responsibility” in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Basque Group Senator Luke Uribe-Etxebarria, who was the driving force behind the agreement and who is part of the parliamentary delegation that travelled to Tbilisi, pointed out after the meeting with the President of the Georgian Parliament that granting Georgia official candidate status, similar to what had been done with Ukraine and Moldova, would be a sign of leadership on the part of the EU, would be a sign of EU leadership and would send “clear political signals in the current context of the brutal war of aggression against Ukraine waged by Russia, thus sending a clear political message that Georgia has irreversibly chosen a European path, which should not be subject to interference by third parties”.
