Georgia’s UN Envoy criticises EU’s “secondary” use of objective integration criteria

David Bakradze, the Georgian Ambassador to the United Nations, on Monday said that Europeans’ political priorities were so significant that the indicators, which should normally serve as the basis for any decision, had become secondary in the process of European integration.

In his remarks at a session of the Parliamentary Temporary Investigative Commission, Bakradze explained that the challenges faced by Georgia in its pursuit of visa liberalisation stemmed from the European side's prioritisation of “political priorities and tastes” over objective criteria and indicators.

He also noted that, in personal conversations, representatives of European countries at the UN confirmed that it was a mistake not to grant candidate status to Georgia - a country that had been successful by all indicators - along with Ukraine and Moldova.

“The facts we’ve been seeing since 2014 directly point to and show that their political priorities and preferences are so important that the criteria, indicators, and benchmarks, which should normally form the basis of any decision, become secondary”, Bakradze said.

“I can honestly say that I haven’t met a single European diplomat - I mean European colleagues at the UN - who, in a personal conversation, hasn’t said that the political decision made was a mistake, that it was wrong not to grant candidate status to Georgia, which, by every indicator and benchmark, was the most successful state, along with Ukraine and Moldova. In private conversations, everyone says it was a mistake”, he concluded.