Address by Mr Milan CABRNOCH, Chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Armenia, EU-Azerbaijan and EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committees for the extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on 23 November 2010 - Strasbourg

Mr President,

Dear Colleagues,

In my capacity as Chairman of the Delegation responsible for relations between Parliament of Georgia and European Parliament I would like to extend a warm welcome to President Saakashvili to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Mr President, I would like to thank you for you speech today.

As I remember, you delivered before a speech at the Plenary Session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 14 November 2006, when you presented the main political projects of the Georgian authorities and the clear European perspective and aspirations of the Georgian citizens.

Many things have happened since: good ones, but, unfortunately, also bad ones.

As you know, "for better and for worse", the European Union will always support Georgia and will continue cooperating with the Georgian authorities, in particular within the framework of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement.
As you remember, Mr President, some Members of our Delegation had a very interesting meeting with you in Tbilisi in March this year.

We were satisfied with our discussion.

I assure you that we will continue the same frank political dialogue with our Georgian colleagues in March 2011 during the next meeting of the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in Brussels.

There are still lot of issues of common concern that need to be addressed by us and by you.

We have had the proof that there is an obvious political will on both sides to move forward in our relations, although we realise that it is not always easy to achieve our goals.
Personally I think that the ongoing democratisation process of Georgia could provide the answers to many questions that have remained unanswered so far.

We are ready to continue and intensify our support to Georgia along this whole process, and look forward to further tangible achievements that will result in the improvement of the life of the Georgian citizens, as well as the improvement of even better political, social, economical and cultural relations among all European Union member countries and Georgia.