Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said following a meeting in Riga with his Latvian counterpart Andris Berzins that Georgia expects "a worthy assessment" of the issue of simplification of the visa regime with the EU at the 'Eastern Partnership' summit to be held in May in Riga.
"Riga will be a great place, where, during the summit of the 'Eastern Partnership' sufficient progress on a number of issues will be achieved and special emphasis on the possible simplification of the visa regime between the EU and Georgia will be made," he said. "Georgia expects to receive a worthy assessment at the Riga summit," Margvelashvili said.
The head of the Center for Global Studies, Nana Devdariani, told Vestnik Kavkaza that at this stage there will be no liberalization. In her opinion, the question is "who needs it?" At the same time, she noted that "we have a visa regime with Russia, where about a million of our citizens live and work. We can't travel without a visa to Russia. But Russian citizens do not need a visa to enter Georgia. We should probably think more about this."
The head of the Center for Security Studies and International Relations of Georgia, Nika Chitadze, is also very pessimistic. "I doubt that a liberalization of the visa regime is possible today. Unfortunately, at this stage we have the opposite position," the expert said, noting that after the terrorist attacks in Paris earlier this year the EU decided to tighten the rules for entry to its territory. He stressed that from March 1, 2010, there is an agreement between Georgia and the EU that provides for reducing tariff rates.
Returning to the issue of the visa regime with the EU, Devdariani said that "the EU countries often express dissatisfaction with the fact that they have been filled with refugees and labor migrants from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Of course they won't be happy. And politicians who are going to participate in elections always have to reckon with the opinion of the population, which doesn't welcome the fact that their jobs may be taken by immigrants of our countries."
Nika Chitadze said that "although Georgia has advanced further than other states in the South Caucasus, the country still has to fulfill various requirements of the European Union in the framework of the agreements. And in this case, the EU made a commitment to simplify the visa arrangements, and the Georgian authorities, for their part, have promised to work hard to prevent illegal immigration into the European Union."
