Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili delivers annual report for 2022
By Liza Mchedlidze
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Gharibashvili, summarized the activities of the year 2022 and delivered an annual report. He named territorial unification of the country as the most important task and idea around which the whole nation should unite.
According to the Prime Minister, the opponents are talking about everything except important issues for the country. According to him, Georgia should regain the occupied territories only in a peaceful way and the government has a plan for this.
"You know that the budget of occupied Abkhazia if I'm not mistaken, amounts to just 200 million dollars, and this budget is fully subsidized. I want to say the following is a missed opportunity for our Abkhazian and Ossetian brothers and sisters. In case of unification of our country, we can invest 10 billion dollars in the first three years in Abkhazia, as well as in Samachablo. We can do this very easily; We have understood all this and discussed it at the Economic Council.
Abkhazia can become second Monaco and this is not an exaggeration. It has a huge potential to become the second Monaco and Sukhumi the second Monte-Carlo. Therefore, of course, our policy is peaceful, we want to heal the wounds received by so many wars. I also want to say that our policy will not be revised, we only want to end this conflict and reconcile in a peaceful way. We all want to live together in a united, strong Georgia," Irakli Gharibashvili said.
During his speech, Gharibashvili also touched upon Georgia's EU candidacy application and, once again, assessed EU refusing candidacy to Georgia as a 'political decision' and for all the progress that has been achieved in the country in the last 10 years is only thanks to the ruling Georgian Dream party.
"Georgia was given a European perspective that was unimaginable until now. This war accelerated the processes and we understand it well. I would like to reiterate that we expected to receive the candidate status, although we understand that it was only a political decision and it was not a decision based on merit that Georgia was not given the status at this stage.
We believe that our country will receive this status very soon. What allows me to say this is the circumstances and the successful reforms that we have carried out, the 12 recommendations that have been defined by the European Union, have been meticulously carried out with the involvement of our parliament, the government and all of us, and now we are waiting for the decision of our European colleagues.
Here I would like to remind the public that all the good things and all the progress achieved in the last 10 years on the path of our country's European integration are only the merit of our team. "Association agreement, free trade, visa-free regime, the now official application for EU membership and the adopted European perspective - all this is thanks to the Georgian Dream, said the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister of Georgia also discussed 'unprecedented' challenges in Ukraine and he once again confirmed his support to the Ukrainian people, wishing them peace and a quick end to this war.
As the Prime Minister noted, the ongoing war in Ukraine had a great impact on the European continent itself, as well as on Georgia and global politics as a whole.
"This war had a great impact not only on the European continent itself, but also on our region, our country, and most of all, on global politics. It can be said that the whole world is facing a great challenge that has not been faced since the Second World War. We are well aware of this, it is the most difficult challenge, so this challenge needs to be managed very wisely and we have structured our policy accordingly.
We have implemented the right policy from the very first days and we are implementing this right policy. I have said many times, and the common spirit of our team members is that our main task should be to protect the national interests of our country. It is with this main motivation, with this idea, that we act and carry out the policy that, first of all, our people and the interests of our people need," Irakli Gharibashvili said.
