The Chair of the Legal Issues Committee, Anri Okhanashvili and the Chair of the EU Integration Committee, Tamar Khulordava met with the EU Ambassador to Georgia Carl Hartzell and the Diplomatic Missions of the EU Member States to discuss the visa liberalization process, respective upheld and scheduled legal changes and future cooperation aspects.

As A. Okhanashvili commented to media, visa liberalization is a very important achievement of the country and our society and EU and our friend countries strongly support maintenance of this achievement.

“Hence, today we discussed visa liberalization related issues, further steps and cooperation. We dwelt on the border control issues. There is the Institute of Police Attachés, the representatives of which successfully cooperate with the EU member states. We have concluded the agreement with EuroJust and deriving from this agreement the liaison prosecutor will be dispatched to EuroJust. We make strong and proper steps for cooperation with the EU institutions and further approximation. This meeting was dedicated to analysis and solution of respective challenges. Naturally, we will maintain our achievement and EU also strongly supports the further discussion around visa liberalization”, - he noted.

As T. Khulordava stated, visa free travel is the outcome of utmost importance in Georgia-EU relations.

“We closely cooperate with our partners – EU member states as we enjoy the visa free travel to prevent any threat to visa free for Georgia. Unfortunately, this benefit has increased the number of unsubstantiated asylum-seekers in certain countries especially, and thus, hold the regular exchange of information with our partners from EU”.

EU Integration Committee hears the report by the executive authority on visa liberalization process twice a year. “These hearings aim at diligent steps we are to make to maintain our visa free travel. There are certain legal changes adopted by the Parliament and there are the legal changes under consideration. We have consulted with the EU Ambassadors and now, expect the conclusion of the EU mission on border control issue. We discussed also on cooperation between the law-enforcement agencies, readmission and other issues”, - T. Khulordava noted.