We expect that the European Commission will fairly assess Georgia’s progress and issue a recommendation on granting the country candidate, said Georgian Foreign Minister, when reporting to the Parliament within Minister’s Hour format.

Ilia Darchiashvili also highlighted the Government’s “very active” and “quite dynamic” cooperation with the EU, but noted Georgia’s eventual membership in the bloc was “up to each member state”.

“During the past year, an important part of our foreign policy was focused on the deepening of bilateral relations with friendly and partner countries. Of course, in terms of European integration, we work very actively in the Georgia-EU bilateral format, we cooperate quite dynamically, but the final membership of Georgia in the EU is up to each member state.

Therefore, one of our main priorities was to, on the one hand, work very actively in bilateral formats with EU member states in order to strengthen and deepen our bilateral relations, and on the other hand, to mobilise European partners as much as possible so that Georgia can successfully follow the path of European integration”, - said the top Georgian diplomat.

He also underlined cooperation with the United States - which he called “our main strategic partner” - by saying the ties over the past year had been “very interesting” and “result-oriented”.