Nothing is hindering this issue, we are waiting for the December 14-15 session of the European Council, so that the Georgian people deservedly receive the candidate status, which the whole state has been working on for a year and a half, - said the Speaker of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili.

According to Papuashvili, those who talk about some hinderances have a very low opinion of the European Union.

"As for the candidate status, we have several circumstances regarding Georgia: first, we have a positive conclusion of the European Commission to grant Georgia the status of a candidate country. Second, we have heard so far that 27 countries have politically declared their support for the candidate status. Nothing is hindering this issue, so we will wait for the December 14-15 session of the European Council, so that the Georgian people deservedly receive the candidate status, which the whole state has been working on for a year and a half. We deserved the candidate status last year as well, because we were leaders in relation to other countries. However, unfortunately, this decision was not made last year. This year all the prerequisites are there for that, so we expect only that the decision will be made based on merits.

As for the question that this decision may be hindered, I think that those who are talking about it have a very low opinion of the European Union. If there is an internal discourse, and this is not a new internal discourse that is going on now, it does not mean that if one state behaves unfairly, others should also behave unfairly towards Georgia. Our shared European value says that the decision will be made fairly, objectively and based on merits. We have the expectation from the EU member states that the decision will be made fairly," Papuashvili said.