The Chairman of the ruling party "Georgian Dream," Irakli Kobakhidze, congratulated Ukraine and Moldova on their EU candidate status.

"Congratulations to both Ukraine and Moldova on their candidate status, which will be finally confirmed by the council in a week," cites Kobakhidze Rustavi2.

"As for the decision regarding Georgia. Georgia has been waiting for the official recognition of the European perspective by the EU for many years. We are glad that today this perspective was officially recognized by the European Commission and they offered us a concrete guide to obtaining candidate status," he stated.

Kobakhidze also noted that their geographical position hampered candidate status.

"We want to remind the public that due to the geographical factor, Georgia received the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan 2 years later compared to Ukraine and Moldova. Also, Georgia started visa liberalization negotiations 4 years later compared to Ukraine and 2 years later compared to Moldova. Georgia received visa liberalization action plan 3 years later compared to Ukraine and 2 years later compared to Moldova, but got visa-free travel earlier compared to Ukraine. Similarly, Georgia started negotiations on an Association Agreement 3 years later compared to Ukraine, however, it signed an Association Agreement 1 year earlier than Ukraine," said the politician. 

According to him, although the candidate status does not give the country any financial or other material privileges, not receiving this status at this stage is, to some extent, still disappointing.

"However, we understand that Georgia, unlike Ukraine, and even Moldova, did not sacrifice enough today to obtain this status. We understand that the victims and bloodshed 14 or even 30 years ago and 300,000 IDPs today, unfortunately, have already lost their relevance for our European partners," Kobakhidze said.

As previously reported, the European Commission stated on June 17 that the state of democracy in Georgia does not meet the Copenhagen criteria and the state must implement changes to obtain this status.

"We recommend providing a European perspective and (in the future) determining the extent to which Georgia meets the requirements for candidate status," said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.