A lot of events occurred in 2015 both in the political and economic spheres. Earlier, Vestnik Kavkaza summed up the results of Azerbaijan and Armenia. It is time to sum up Georgia's results. Experts from the republic Nana Devdariani and Nika Chitadze expressed their viewpoints about the last twelve months.
Head of the Center for Global Studies of Georgia Nana Devdariani named the resignation of Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and the appointment of Giorgi Kvirikashvili to this post as the main events of the year. She also noted that the overall composition of the Cabinet remained virtually unchanged. "There is a new minister Mikhail Janelidze. He received the rank of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs as head of this department," the expert said.
Devdariani assessed the speech of the new head of the government in parliament as "normal and balanced."
"Speaking about former Prime Minister many people are wondering why he resigned. Before the next parliamentary elections he needed to show rapid changes, but the changes that took place under his guidance were not the fastest and they didn't require a lot of energy. The ruling coalition will have a lot to do a lot to restore trust of the voters. I think if the elections are fine it will be a more prosperous parliament than it is today,'' the political scientist said.
She also noted that the social situation in the country worsened against the backdrop of the depreciation of the lari. "The representatives of the previous government often try to connect it to poor work of the economic bloc, but in fact they understand that the lari doesn't reflect the real state of the economy. The number of remittances reduced from abroad, primarily from Russia, because many of our citizens work and live in this country. The decrease significantly influenced the lari," the expert said
The head of the Center for Security Studies and International Relations Nika Chitadze pointed out "the further promotion of Georgia to the European and Euro-Atlantic structures" as the main positive result of the year. "Certainly, I mean that the fact that a new NATO training center was opened in Georgia. In addition, the issue of the visa regime with the EU was also successfully resolved. I think that starting from mid-2016 many Georgian citizens will be able to use it and travel to the Schengen states," he said.
"As for negative things, I think that due the deteriorating of the socio-economic situation of Georgia the growth of GDP slowed in 2015. It is 2.5-2.7%, but in 2014 it was 4.6%," the expert said.
Speaking about the negative trends of the year, the analyst mentioned pressure on the free press, i.e. the situation around the Rustavi 2 TV company.
