President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili Delivers a Speech at the 2024 Munich Security Conference
By Liza Mchedlidze
Monday, February 19, 2024
President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili delivered a speech at the 2024 Munich Security Conference, emphasizing the 'existential' importance of EU enlargement. She stressed the necessity for countries to stand united, more democratic, and confront autocracy, terrorism, and cyber-attacks, all emanating from Russia.
"If we look at the global picture, we will see that Russia is not only conquering countries, threatening our countries with cyber attack, hybrid war, but also wants to engage in space war, which will threaten our countries' communication and logistics.
I think there should be a push for creativity that will allow us to solve these issues and accelerate reforms in Georgia, but nothing will change the fact that together, we have no other alternative than to be united, more democratic, and confront the alliance of autocracy, terrorism, and cyber-attacks - all threats coming from one direction." Zourabichvili said.
Zourabichvili stated that it's crucial for both Georgia's security and the interests of the European Union to prevent Russia from gaining exclusive power in the Black Sea region.
"EU membership for Georgia is a necessity, a security. This is the only perspective for a country that shares European values from the point of view of civilization. However, today, the main issue is security. The need for security is something that the European Union should also recognize.
What Russia is doing now was actually announced in 2007: that it would not allow the West to enter the Black Sea region. In 2008, the events in Georgia occurred, followed by Crimea, once again involving the Black Sea region and the war in Ukraine. Russia stated its intentions and is following through with them.
I think it is crucial, in the interests of the European Union and for Georgia's security, to prevent Russia from becoming an exclusive power in the Black Sea region, as it is currently attempting to do. This is vital for the future, particularly for communication, which will be increasingly significant in the coming years and decades. We must take steps to prevent such a scenario," stated the president.
