President Zourabichvili speaks at World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg
By Liza Mchedlidze
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
The President of Georgia delivered a speech at the "World Forum for Democracy" in Strasbourg.
Salome Zourabichvili spoke about the challenges on the road to democracy.
According to her, one of the challenges is polarization, which has invaded every institution.
"We are, I wouldn't say in a gray zone, but we are not in a safe zone either, and at such a moment, polarization becomes a crime against the nation, because it weakens [the country] the most, is the most exploitable by the enemy, while not using a military attack." said Zourabichvili.
According to her, the challenge is the lack of reaction from European partners.
"The third challenge is the lack of reaction from our European partners. Georgia is familiar with this path, on which it is moving forward, starting from the neighborhood policy.
I remember this period, when I came to Georgia as the ambassador of France, and then as the minister of foreign affairs of Georgia. Back then, everyone told me that the neighborhood policy is not for Georgia, that it is too far away and will never happen. Then we saw the neighborhood policy, association, visa liberalization, free trade space - these are very important steps, but there was no reaction from Europe.
Perhaps, the European political community partially responded, however, Georgia experienced great disappointment in the process of granting candidate status to Ukraine (which was clearly understood by the population) and Moldova.
Despite everything, being disappointed, that is, being left out of the process, is a message to others that there may be a fragile situation that one day they will be able to exploit, thereby compensating for other losses and defects. It is an important issue.
So we experienced, I would say, this existential frustration. We are so European and have been for so long that at some point we have to join this European family. I think we have no time to waste today. Georgia needs candidacy.
The message has been understood - you are not perfect - and we are not perfect, but today we need a candidacy and we need the next path to be thorough." said Zourabichvili.
