The Ambassador of the European Union to Georgia answered the questions sent by the citizens.

What does “candidate status” actually mean? Does that mean a country has access to special programmes for example? Are there other benefits?

“Once a country’s European perspective has been recognised, obtaining candidate status is the first official step in the accession process and a precondition to advance further.

However, a candidate status does not entail any automatic access to additional funding compared to countries having the European perspective”, - said Carl Hartzell.