EU Ambassador’s letter undermines bloc’s claim that Georgia was the one refusing to start EU accession talks

The letter from the EU Ambassador, Paweł Herczyński, addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, turns upside down the entire hysterical campaign against Georgia, through which the European Union had been claiming all this time that Georgia itself had refused to start accession negotiations with the EU.

In the letter sent to the Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister, dated November 5, 2025, Paweł Herczyński reports that Georgia's participation in EU-funded regional programs on security and organized crime has been suspended. This concerns an area where Georgia has achieved numerous successes and received multiple acknowledgments from the European Union's own representatives.

But the most important thing in this letter is something entirely different - the admission by the EU Ambassador, where the latter explicitly notes, with a specific date, that the European Union decided to suspend Georgia's accession process as early as June 27, 2024, in line with the European Council's conclusions.

“In view of the specific circumstances in Georgia and in line with the European Council conclusions as of June 27, 2024, which resulted in the de facto suspension of Georgia’s accession process, I would like to inform you that Georgia’s participation in the following EU-funded regional projects in the areas of security and organised crime has been suspended”, Herczyński stated in a letter.

The date in question is June 27, 2024, which means that the decision to suspend Georgia's EU accession procedures had already been made by the European Union itself, five months before Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze made a statement that the Georgian Government would not raise the issue of opening EU negotiations until the end of 2028, though Georgia would agree to the proposal if an offer were made.

As is clear from the November 5 letter, at the time when MEPs were expressing sorrow and drafting joint appeals regarding the Georgian Dream party's anti-European steps - stating that “despite the country being granted candidate status in 2023, the ruling party not only failed to use this historical chance but instead led a process of democratic backsliding in Georgia” - this chance had already been taken away from the country by their own decision.

Despite this, a large-scale campaign was launched against the Georgian government, involving nearly all MEPs and Western Foreign Ministers. They were accusing the ruling party of nothing less than treason and calling on Georgian citizens to take to the streets.

Among them was the President of a CIS country, Maia Sandu of Moldova, who said: “Georgians are Europeans. Georgia's future is in Europe, and no one can take that away from them”.

On the backdrop of the letter of admission that Paweł Herczyński sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs two days ago, his words, dated November 29, 2024, sound particularly cynical: “We had hoped that the elections would give a new impetus to EU-Georgia relations, but instead of a positive push, there were serious violations, as international observers reported. The statement yesterday that Georgia is halting European integration is truly regrettable”.