Under the present conditions, under this course of Georgia, Germany is not working on enlargement anymore. No one in the EU really is. Most likely, the European Council in December, when our heads of state gather, will confirm this, - German Ambassador to Georgia Peter Fischer stated in an interview with Radio Liberty.

According to the ambassador, no one is being blackmailed or pressured to join the European Union, no one is being forced to join the European Union, countries are being invited to join the European Union.

“If you're a Georgian and your aspiration is to join the EU this report is a catastrophe. I've said on the record many times, the EU is governed in writing. I encourage people to read the report. It's online. European Commission, fourth of November. Germany agrees with the report. We endorse the report. Georgia is off track to join the EU. This is not our responsibility. It's Georgia's responsibility, but I think it should be a wake-up call to Georgian citizens.

What has happened in that year? If I say Germany endorses the report, agrees with the report, it means that for us, this file is closed, not because we don't want Georgia. We want Georgia. We offered Georgia, we gave candidate status based on trust. Under the present conditions, under this course, Germany is not working on enlargement anymore. No one in the EU really is. Most likely the December, European Council, when the heads of state and government meet, they will confirm that the file will be closed because of actions on the Georgian side. I don't think I need to repeat all the actions, but maybe just to remind you, the NGOs in this country have been smashed. The demonstrators had their human rights violated. The political parties are being smashed right now. Some have been put to jail. There is a law about political activity of people who have ever been associated with a forbidden political party, and the prohibition of certain political parties is in the program. I expect that it will come. The free media is under great pressure. So if you want to join the EU, you have to transpose European law to your law and the most important parts of our law concern the way our states are set up, concern that the European Union is a union of democracies, whatever you want to call them, parliamentary democracies, with civil liberties for the people, freedom, rights for the citizens, and those are the fundamentals. That's the most important thing if you want to join the EU, if you can't demonstrate that, you won't join. And Georgia has gone in another direction. It's really a bitter and sad truth. I should add, the report says that the candidate status remains like Turkey's. It's put to the side because the EU is a hopeful union. We're idealists. We never give up hope that perhaps something fundamental will change, and a country like Turkey or Georgia will once again turn towards us and do what is necessary to join. So we're ready to start from a clean slate, but the facts speak another language right now.

Nobody is pressured. Nobody is blackmailed to join the EU. Nobody is forced to join the EU. Countries are invited to join the EU. If you don't want, or you can't manage, then you won't”, said the Ambassador.