The Prime Minister of Georgia speaks about the decisive importance of economic factors in the European Union enlargement process. As Irakli Kobakhidze sais in the interview with “Rustavi 2”, the “financial sustainability of a member state is a priority for the European Union, so that a new member does not create an additional financial burden for the organization”.

“Why is the economy important - the economy is also one of the main factors for the European Union when it makes a decision on a country’s accession. This has a very simple logic - the EU also does not want a specific country to become an excessive burden. Today, if Ukraine were to theoretically become a member of the EU, all those Eastern European countries that are currently on subsidies would have their aid reduced to zero under the existing formula, because all these funds would go to Ukraine. Of course, in such a situation, the economy is assigned a defining importance”, - said the Prime Minister.

He presented the dynamics of Georgia’s economic growth in the context of comparison with Moldova and noted that over the last five years, Georgia recorded a significant difference.

“Georgia is leading here as well - let us compare Georgia to Moldova in terms of economic growth: Georgia’s economy was USD 16 billion in 2020 and became USD 38.1 billion last year, meaning it increased by 22.1 billion.

As for Moldova, it was USD 11.45 billion and increased to 20.1 billion. This means that the difference between the economies of Georgia and Moldova, during these 5 years, increased by USD 8.6 billion, and the difference between the budgets increased by more than USD 3.5 billion.

I am not even saying anything about the fact that all this is happening against the background where the European Union gives loan after loan to Moldova - they loaded it with loans that Moldova then has to repay years later. Here too, we see that objectively, from an economic standpoint, Georgia is a much more desirable partner for the EU than Moldova or Ukraine”, - said Irakli Kobakhidze.