One day after Armenia said it will join Russia’s Eurasian Union, Georgia’s PM has said it might, in due course, do the same, the EUobserver reorts.
Speaking on national TV on Wednesday (4 September), the Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said: “I am keeping a close eye on it [the Eurasian Union] and we are studying it. At this stage we have no position at all. If in perspective we see that it is in our country’s strategic interest, then, why not? But at this stage we have no position at all.”
The remark caused an instant reaction in the Georgian parliament.
Giorgi Gabashvili, an MP from the opposition UNM party, told the house: “I hope the Prime Minister lied and I hope the Georgian government in fact is not studying this option.”
The PM’s office later published a press release, circulated in Brussels, which noted: “While not ruling out the possibility of joining such a union in the future, should it be judged in the national interest, he [Ivanishvili] stated that ‘At this stage, we have no position at all’.”
Georgia’s foreign minister, Maia Panjikidze, added: “The whole world is [studying the Eurasian Union project], including the EU. It is near us, of course we have to know what is going on.”
