TBILISI, December 15 Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili called the country's population will come to Freedom Square in Tbilisi on Friday and celebrate receiving candidate status for EU membership, the government press service reports.
The European Council on Thursday granted Georgia the status of an EU candidate country.
«Georgia from today is a European state, a European country. Georgia is a candidate country for the European Union. This victory belongs to us, dear citizens. This is the result of our work… I invite everyone on December 15 at 17.00 (16.00 Moscow time) to Freedom Square to jointly celebrate this historic victory of our country and our people,» the statement said.
The heads of state and government of the European Union at the summit in Brussels in June 2022 granted the status of EU candidate countries to Ukraine and Moldova, but not Georgia. The EU conditioned the granting of such status to Georgia on the fulfillment of 12 conditions. The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, during a visit to Tbilisi in September this year, said that Georgia has so far fulfilled only three of the 12 conditions set by the European Commission to obtain the status of a candidate country.
Tbilisi has recently emphasized that it expects to receive candidate status for EU membership by the end of the year. The status of a candidate country in itself, as well as the start of negotiations, does not necessarily mean that the country will join the European Union; these steps also do not oblige Brussels to anything. Obtaining candidate status is only the beginning of a rather long journey towards joining the EU. Turkey has been a candidate since 1999, North Macedonia since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, and Serbia since 2012. Croatia was the last country to join the EU — this happened in 2013, the process took 10 years.