STATEMENT OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF GEORGIA, MAKA BOTCHORISHVILI, AT THE PANEL DISCUSSION OF THE CONCORDIA SUMMIT ENTITLED “Southeastern Europe and the Black Sea as a Beacon of Stability”

Thank you very much for inviting me and giving me this opportunity to be here. This is very important week for everybody, as UN General Assembly is important for all of us. 

Well, Georgia's role, and I would say role of South Caucasus is increasing not only from regional perspective, but from global perspective as well, and what's happening in wider region, it is important for, as you mentioned, for United States as well and the geopolitical moves that United States is making. 

Georgia has been always a reliable partner. We have developed very close partnership with the United States for decades. Georgia has been contributing to U.S. and NATO-led missions for a long time, and we are proud of that partnership that we have developed throughout these decades. In the last years, U.S. played an important role in our region. If we look at Azerbaijan and Armenia and the peace deal that has been achieved in the last year, is very important for our region. 

Georgia has been always playing an important role in the region to contribute to peace and to contribute to peaceful resolution of conflict, and we are very happy that we see this development in South Caucasus, and we see also a role of United States that was played especially personally by President Trump in the region. 

That helps to create new opportunities in the region with Azerbaijan and Armenia, with both neighbors Georgia enjoys to have very good strategic relationship. And definitely with this new development and the role that U.S. is playing in the region, we are looking at future with more opportunities to come to our region.

Thank you, Prime Minister, for also explaining and mentioning how sometimes European integration is used as a political instrument, and we don't know whether it is good or not for European enlargement itself. 

For Georgia, European integration and relations with the European Union, as it is a face of Europe for the moment, is emotional and very much linked to Georgia's history and Georgia's longstanding aspirations to be part of Europe, and in this case part of European Union. 

We have more. I mean, we are associated partners since 2014, and before that we had our cooperation agreement with the European Union that led to association partnership, and we have deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union, and we enjoy practical cooperation. 

But for the moment, if you look at the situation, especially after war in Ukraine, geopolitical context has changed, and the EU enlargement has gained kind of new momentum. 

We are looking at Western Balkans first of all, of course, to see whether enlargement is alive and whether it can still kind of work. And of course, it needs to be continued. I mean, we have to see real examples that it is working. We have to see that Western Balkans, European Union is delivering. 

Because for us, it is kind of, this is one good example, but another thing is what will happen in our region in South Caucasus. For us, we have aspirations towards European Union, but we do not have experience of living within the European structures. And same goes to European Union. European Union wants enlargement, but at the same time European Union does not have experience of being represented in South Caucasus. So it is kind of process where we both need to learn from each other, we need to learn how to coexist in one environment. And if we share this intention to live together in one family, of course we need to work for that. 

And we are not waiting either. We know that it is a quite long process. We are focusing a lot on economic development, which is essential for European integration, because we need to focus on different areas and different aspects of our development, and economic development is very important from many perspectives. 

So we are doing quite well. We are proud of it. That gives us opportunity to focus on different projects, especially when we talk about connectivity, which is also important from European perspective that requires lots of energy, lots of infrastructure, and so that is something that we are very much focusing on these days.

Georgia has strategic location that naturally gives us possibility to develop our partnerships and cooperation with different geographical areas and different directions. Because this is something that can be useful for Georgia, but can be useful for Europe as well and for wider region. 

We are looking at these partnerships from first of all connectivity perspective, to develop trade. Georgia enjoys, to have 16 free trade agreements with different countries. That gives us possibility also to put Georgia on the map, where we can talk about developing trade and economic relationship. 

And then, when Miss Prime Minister mentioned about energy and the situation that is related to energy diversification, and for Europe it is also important to develop partnership towards our region. And Georgia together with Azerbaijan, together with Türkiye, has developed already practical examples of this connectivity, and the projects that exist in our regions for decades now is important for Europe, and so is important for Central Asia as well. 

So this is a momentum in this geopolitical context where Georgia has quite important geopolitical role to play, and that definitely requires development of different partnerships. But it does not mean that we are replacing our aspirations and we are replacing our intention to join European Union.

Indeed Georgia is an important country from the perspective that Georgia connects eight landlocked countries to the sea and to Western markets. And from that perspective, definitely developing infrastructure is very important. 

Today we have two important seaports in Georgia operating and connecting, and that is useful not only for Georgia but for those eight landlocked countries in Central Asia and in our region. And we are working on a project to develop deep-sea port in Anaklia, Georgia, which will add value to connectivity from our region. 

And we talked about energy connectivity, so we have already implemented projects from Azerbaijan through Türkiye that are connecting our markets to European market. 

Another one that is also important to be implemented is electricity cable project, which is in the priority list for European Union, and that is something very important to implement for our region and from European perspective as well to be connected to wider Asian region. 

And transport, railway projects - we have recently launched Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project, which pretty much gives possibility to Central Asian countries as well to be connected through railway to Western market. 

And here we are. I mean there are many other projects that can be implemented through Georgia, and we are very much focusing on that from infrastructure perspective, but it is not only infrastructure projects. It is also kind of much bigger to connect to important regions and things to get increased. 

First of all, from government perspective it is important to have right policies in place. Georgia is progressing quite well. We are very proud that we achieved much progress in recent years, especially if you look at low level of corruption and very high numbers of economic development. It encourages businesses and investors to come to Georgia, to invest in Georgia. 

With all this geopolitical context, security environment for business communities in Georgia and possibilities for new businesses to start, of course, that gives us opportunities and new opportunities. And economic numbers are quite good. We have around 8-9% economic growth in the last six years, which is very high in Europe. And definitely that is something that gives us opportunity to look at different projects.

It has been quite complicated for our region, but we are proud that we managed to keep our country secure and stable, and that is the biggest achievement of this government, that in this geopolitical environment, we keep Georgia going and we keep stability in the country. And this is the key for our, I mean, hope that in two years' time Georgia will be a much better place to be and to visit and to work as well. 

And of course, keeping security and stability in the country is key. That is ground for everything that we are talking about, economic development and developing cooperation in future.