00:00The President is the mayor.
00:03Georgian Prime Minister Herak Likobaridze insisted his government remains very committed
00:08to joining the European Union, but offered no convincing explanation of how he intends
00:13to revive the country's stalled accession bid.
00:16Instead, he accused Brussels of political blackmail.
00:19Georgia applied to join the bloc in 2022, alongside Ukraine and Moldova, but the Commission
00:24initially withheld candidate status, citing insufficient progress on democracy.
00:30It was extremely unfair, because there was no ground for that.
00:35Later, the European Commission publicized its assessment by scores about Georgia and other
00:42candidate countries, and Georgia was doing much better than Moldova, for example, or much
00:46better than Bosnia, but these countries received the candidate status.
00:50In November 2024, Pellisset announced it would not seek to open accession negotiations before
00:57the end of 2028.
00:58Likobaridze again shifted responsibility to Brussels.
01:02If the European Commission would decide to open the accession talks for Georgia, we would
01:08immediately join it.
01:10But finally, it was not us, but it was the European Commission which decided to suspend
01:18the political dialogue with Georgia.
01:20Asked what concrete steps he would take to break the deadlock, the Prime Minister offered
01:25little beyond a willingness to hold a public discussion with the Commission.
