Georgian Parliament Speaker calls for unity among EU candidate countries to address accession challenges

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said the European Union’s enlargement process must remain merit-based, with each candidate country’s achievements and progress assessed fairly, consistently and on the basis of a predictable approach.

In his speech at the first Conference of Speakers of Parliament of EU Candidate Countries in Serbia’s capital city of Belgrade, Papuashvili emphasised that the conditions for EU accession must be clear, the progress must be duly recognized, and the goalposts must not be moved for political purposes.

“But, unfortunately, every now and then, new and unpredictable preconditions are invented by individual EU member states, or more oddly, by Brussels. These unpredictable preconditions artificially delay the progress of the candidate states. It is more than obvious that these preconditions often resemble political blackmail more than constructive conditionality. They stem from the EU’s election cycles, domestic political narratives, or from historical and identity-related disputes”, he said.

“No single candidate state can withstand the asymmetric leverage of an existing member state blocking progress on subjective grounds. Therefore, we must help each other in overcoming these undue obstacles”, the Speaker concluded.