The blackmail of the Georgian people over visa liberalization continues, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said while presenting his annual report to Parliament.

According to him, "the attitude that the European bureaucracy is displaying toward the Georgian people is absolutely unfair."

"We have gone through very difficult processes over the past several years. The Georgian people have faced great injustice, and we have seen double standards everywhere. You can clearly see that the attitude the European bureaucracy is showing toward the Georgian people is absolutely unfair. How else can one explain the fact that in June 2022 Ukraine and Moldova were granted EU candidate status, while Georgia - and therefore the Georgian people - were not? There is only one explanation: injustice and double standards.

They made that decision in June 2022, and by the beginning of 2023 they themselves acknowledged that Georgia deserved candidate status more than another candidate country. Yet this injustice continued for a year and a half. At the same time, while they were refusing us candidate status and later refusing to open accession negotiations, NGOs funded by them were trying to organize a revolution in Georgia.

To counter this, we had to adopt the Transparency Law and the Grants Law. You remember the reaction to those laws and the scale of the disinformation that was spread. 'A black day for Georgian democracy' - those were the words of the then U.S. ambassador during the previous U.S. administration. It was disgraceful and shameful.

Under such conditions, we had to confront injustice and double standards. The continued blackmail of the Georgian people over visa liberalization is simply another continuation of that pressure. It is a very unfortunate development, but we are responding with patience.

We are consistently fulfilling our obligations related to European integration. We have completed 80% of our commitments overall, including 81% of the obligations arising directly from the Association Agreement. That is our approach and our attitude. No matter how unfair the European bureaucracy's attitude toward the Georgian people may be, we have chosen our path, and we will follow it through to the end," Kobakhidze said.