Pawel Herczynski - we are talking about a big enlargement, which is also a challenge for the EU itself, for the first time we have a date proposal, 2030, I sincerely hope it will happen
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Ambassador of the European Union to Georgia H.E. Pawel Herczynski hopes that Georgia will become a member of the European Union by 2030.
When asked by the First Channel of Georgia whether Georgia has a chance to become a member of the European Union by 2030, Herczynski said that he and his team are working tirelessly for this.
"I sincerely hope it will happen. That is why I am here and we are working tirelessly with the team to help the government deliver on the reforms, but we are also talking about the next government and possibly the one after that. So we, as the European Union, are here to help, facilitate, support as much as we can, although a lot depends on the Georgians themselves. It is important that everyone works together. We need the country to be ready, compliant, so that it can receive all the benefits of future membership. On the other hand, you need 27 member states to be ready to accept new members, which is also very difficult, because we are talking about several Eastern Partnership countries, namely Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, and we are also talking about our partners from the Western Balkans, who have started this process much earlier, 20 years ago.
As Herczynski explained, Charles Michel implied that the 27 EU member states need to be ready for the enlargement.
"Thus, we are talking about a major enlargement, which is also a challenge for the EU itself. This is why Charles Michel's speech was so important. It opens a discussion not only about the readiness of the candidate states, but also about the preparation of current members for enlargement. For the first time a date was proposed - 2030, seven years from now. I sincerely hope that this will happen, and I have my fingers crossed for Georgia."
"In my opinion, this is a really important speech. This is the vision and for the first time, a date was proposed. 2030 is a seven-year timeframe, which, unlike previous European standards, is faster. It is the proposal of the President of the European Council to start a discussion. I think this is a very ambitious goal, but I am sure that if Georgia achieves certain changes, there will be full agreement from the current 27 member states. In this speech, Charles Michel meant that the 27 member states need to be ready for enlargement. So it is very good that the discussion is starting and the EU member states, we should be ready to make a decision. So, this is not a task only for the candidate countries, including Georgia, it is also our internal task for the EU members to make sure that in 2030, around this date, we can have another wave of enlargement", said Pawel Herczynski.
