TBILISI, October 6 – EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Tuesday that Georgia remains an EU candidate country “only on paper” – triggering a strong response from the ruling party.
Kos said developments in Georgia would feature in the European Commission’s enlargement reports due at the end of October. She added that she would have preferred Georgia to be at the same stage as Moldova and Ukraine.
“Georgia is only a candidate country on paper. I am sorry about that,” Kos said at a press conference Tuesday. She added that how the EU proceeds with Georgia would depend largely on how the Union’s member states assess the country’s future course.
The European Commission has meanwhile adopted a series of documents preparing the way for future enlargement, including indicative roadmaps for Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and Ukraine under the 2026 enlargement package.
Later Tuesday, Georgian parliamentary majority leader Irakli Kirtskhalia rejected Kos’s criticism, saying Georgia would not pursue EU membership at the expense of what the government considers its national interests.
“When we are told that Georgia ‘lags behind’ Ukraine and Moldova, our answer is simple: Georgia chooses dignity and peace!” Kirtskhalia wrote on social media.
He argued that if progress toward the EU was measured by how unquestioningly a country followed political demands from Brussels, the process could no longer be described as merit-based integration.
Kirtskhalia added that the Georgian government had demonstrated that it could carry out reforms required for European integration, but that it also had “red lines” involving national interests and respect for decisions taken by Georgia’s elected authorities.
Georgia was given formal candidate status in 2023, but Relations between Tbilisi and Brussels began breaking down after the government introduced a ‘foreign agents’ law, targeting foreign funding of political groups. Relations further worsened with the 2024 parliamentary election, and even further as legislative moves increasingly restricted the work of civil society groups. Georgian officials maintain the measures are needed to stem foreign meddling in domestic politics.
