"Georgia is the front-runner in the Eastern Partnership. As it approaches the forthcoming parliamentary elections it has been delivering on its committments. If this trend continues throughout the election process it would provide a very solid basis on which to build co-operation in the future". This was stated by Thomas van-Handel, Team Leader for Georgia in the European External Action Service when addressing a policy dialogue on Georgia at the European Parliament on Tuesday, 27 September. Van Handel said that it was now important for Georgia to consolidate the reforms it has introduced. The EU was ready to assist Georgia in the process.
The EEAS official said that the EU was in the process of developing a new blue-print for its relations with Georgia. This is likely to have more emphasis on economic issues in order to make the agreements signed recently work more tangibly for the Georgian people.
The policy dialogue on the theme "Georgia: Recognising achievements, consolidating reforms and addressing future challenges and aspirations" was organised by the European Policy Centre and LINKS (Dialogue Analysis and Research) under the patronage of the S and D Group in the European Parliament. It was chaired and hosted by Andrej Mamikins, MEP from Latvia. Over a hundred participants, including members of the European parliament, representatives from the European Commission, NATO, the European External Action Service, representatives of missions of the member states to the EU, and representatives from civil society attended the event.
source: commonspace.eu
Photo: participants at a Policy Dialogue on georgia held at the European Parliament on 27 September 2016 (c) commonspace.eu
