The meeting focused on Serbia and Georgia’s European integration process, membership criteria and the ongoing reforms in the two countries. The officials also exchanged opinions on the current global geopolitical situation, as well as the two countries’ internal issues.

Elvira Kovacs stressed that joining the European Union is Serbia’s strategic goal and that our country has been negotiating the issue for 13 years now, adding that the experiences from the process could be useful to Georgia, especially those related to defining the role of the European Integration Committee and the National Assembly in the process.

Kovacs stressed that Serbia had opened 22 negotiating chapters that is, according to the new methodology, 3 clusters, but added that there has been no movement forward since the beginning of the war in Ukraine which has affected the growth of Euroscepticism in our citizens. The most important thing for Serbia is the harmonisation of domestic legislation with the EU acquis, she said stressing that the intention is to fulfil these obligations by 2026. She opined that the European “Western Balkans Growth Plan” is a positive signal from the EU.

The head of the Georgian delegation Nikoloz Samkharadze spoke of Georgia’s experience from 2022 onwards, since it gained the status of EU membership candidate.

Aligning the foreign policy with that of the EU, that is, imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation, is a key condition placed before both countries, the officials noted, opining that the EU prioritises political criteria for the advancement in the European integration process.

Zivota Starcevic said that Serbia and Georgia share similar experiences in terms of protecting their territorial integrity and sovereignty and thanked Georgia for its principled position and non-recognition of the self-declared independence of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija. He stressed that this is a vital issue from the aspect of the country’s advancement toward European Integration.

The officials agreed that constant communication between parliamentarians is very important and that the opening of a Serbian Embassy in Georgia would greatly contribute to the intensification of bilateral relations between our countries.