Georgia`s President-elect Mikheil Kavelashvili on Sunday said the European Union membership was in the interest of the country.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Kavelashvili noted that he wanted to address every citizen who "goes to the protest rally and explain to them that this is an artificially created process and they may not feel it”, in reference to ongoing public protests following the Government’s announcement of the delay of EU accession talks until 2028.

"The statement that Irakli Kobakhidze [the Prime Minister] made may have been incomprehensible to someone, but he explained it well and clearly on the same day and later to the public what he meant. We have a clearly defined, long-term process planned in relation to the European Union. We constantly recognise this and inform the public. Despite the fact that there was more than one offensive resolution, a humiliating attitude on their part. What we demand is a relationship based on mutual respect, transparency, which they seem to superficially recognise, although in their actions we see this double standard", the President-elect said.

"Our desire is to become a member of the European Union, this is the declared will of the state and we all agree on this, but at the same time we have our national interests, which are not to your detriment, but rather this is our organic feeling. The Prime Minister clearly stated that we are ready, [let them] open the accession talks, we`ll sign it. We are of the opinion that their views should change. Otherwise, in return for what they do to us, in some cases they insult us and treat us incorrectly, and we do not respond to them accordingly. We know that these positions need to change, because the EU membership, the rapprochement with the EU is in our interest, and I know that it is in their interest as well. We are trying to somehow bring these points of contact back to a healthy process. This is a very important issue", he continued.

Kavelashvili further added that “the Prime Minister`s statement said that we would not trade with this issue [EU integration] as it is not in our interest and, as a rule, it should not be in their interest either".