Georgian parliamentary speaker regrets that EU has not decided to start accession talks with Tbilisi

TBILISI. March 22 (Interfax) - Georgia regrets that the European Union has still not formally decided to start accession negotiations with it, which it did with regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday and which it did previously with regard to Ukraine and Moldova, Georgian parliamentary Chairman Shalva Papuashvili said.

"We are ahead of Ukraine, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina by all parameters, while the EU has decided to start accession negotiations with regard to them. We can only voice our regret that no such decision has been made with regard to Georgia," Papuashvili told journalists on Friday.

The leaders of the EU member states decided to start accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina at a summit on March 21. The same decision was made with regard to Ukraine and Moldova in December 2023. The EU has granted Georgia candidate country status and issued nine recommendations, whose implementation by Tbilisi is supposed to open the path to beginning accession negotiations with it.