2022-12-26
We respect the sovereignty of every country, but most of all we love our homeland and our main duty is to protect the interests of Georgia. It was announced by Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia when delivering his keynote speech at the launch of a Conference of Ambassadors today.
According to the Head of Government of Georgia, the role of ambassadors in this great mission is profoundly big as they need to convey the message and represent the interests of our country in the right manner to every capital city of the world.
"Dear Ambassadors,
Dear Chairman of Parliament,
Dear Members of the Government and Parliament,
Let me greet you all! It is my honor to address you today. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all of you for your service. I know that your duty is quite challenging, especially in the current reality of turbulence. Naturally, we have to apply different approaches in the new circumstances. I wish to summarize the year in a few words together with you. Main occurrence of the year - the main problem and challenge for the entire world - is the war waged in Ukraine and manifesting itself in an unjustified military aggression of Russia, which turned the entire world order upside down. I wish to agree with the Minister [of Foreign Affairs of Georgia] in claiming that our embassy and personally the ambassador to Ukraine performed their duties until the very last minute, while embassies of other countries were leaving Kiev. I wish to thank our embassy and ambassador to Ukraine, by extending my gratitude to each staff member of our diplomatic mission. Current developments are a tremendous challenge to us all. It is our declared wish to have the war ended as soon as possible, as it creates threats not only to Ukraine itself, but to the security architecture of the entire Europe, our region and - naturally - this war and its aftermath will have an impact not only on our country, but on the entire world. That is why, it is essential to have this conflict - this war - ended quickly. It is our desire. I want to once again wish peace to our Ukrainian friends and people, along with a fast ending of this war. We reiterate our support to their territorial integrity and sovereignty. I wish to note that we did our best and continue to this day in support of our Ukrainian friends. Since the dawn of the war, you may well be aware, we were vocal in supporting Ukraine at practically every platform by signing over 400 resolutions and statements, by declaring support to Ukraine and Ukrainian people. I wish to note hereby that it was not pleasant to hear the statements made by representatives of Ukrainian authorities, to put it straight. Nevertheless, I wish to note that as the country and their government and entire nation is at war, we have no intention to make any additional statements on this topic and we stay away from commenting on it.
I wish to say one thing. Our main duty is to protect our national interests. I have said it on numerous occasions and we confirmed it with our policies and actions that we naturally respect the sovereignty of every country, however most of all we love our homeland and our main duty is to protect the interests of Georgia. Role of ambassadors in this great mission is profoundly big as you need to convey our message and represent the interests of our country in the right manner to every capital city of the world by combatting the disinformation campaign sadly pouring from within our country and others as well. We understand it well that this is an orchestrated attack against the national interests of our homeland. That is why, this attack of disinformation requires effective, counter actions and response measures" stated the Prime Minister of Georgia.
Irakli Garibashvili named the success of the country on the path of EU integration as the significant positive achievement of the year.
"Current year stands out as yet another very important positive event and it is our success on the path of EU integration. European Perspective has been granted to Georgia. You may agree that our overwhelming expectation was that our country would get a candidacy status. Unfortunately, we understand it well that a political decision was not made. I do not wish to say anything diminishing other nations on the same path, but - you may well be aware that - we are far ahead - two or three times ahead of Ukraine and Moldova in terms of reforms and delivery. Nevertheless, it is understandable to us all that it was a political decision. Let us say openly that Ukraine received the candidacy status because it is a country at war. Moldova was deemed to be in a situation that is equalized with a war. Thus, we understand this motivation well enough, however we only wish success to our friendly nations - Moldova and Ukraine. We wish these countries to have peace and wellbeing.
On the same day, when 12 priorities were defined for Georgia, our ruling team - the ruling party - presented a very clear, flawless roadmap to the society, including our partners. The Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia and the entire team were engaged in this process and we delivered on all 12 of them in the most consistent, effective and efficient manner. Workgroups were created within the Parliament. Sadly, I need to note that opposition parties were not fully engaged in this process. Irrespective of this, some did take part in the end. I wish to thank everyone engaged in the process, as it was a truly labor-intensive endeavor. We delivered on all the defined conditions in high precision. All the rest is in process. You may well be aware that several draft laws were sent to the Venice Commission and expect their opinion to accordingly adjust the wording in the legal instruments" noted Irakli Garibashvili.
According to the Prime Minister of Georgia, prudent and consistent policies of the government have led to not only peace and stability in the country, but to double-digit economic growth.
"Main challenge for us is to mitigate the negative impact and influence of the war, by risk avoidance and minimization of threats. Our prudent and consistent policies have led to not only the current peace and stability, but also to a double-digit economic growth in the country, while Europe is experiencing great difficulties and the entire world is experiencing a recession. Economic downturn and unpredictable environment is witnessed all over the world. In the given circumstances, our small but otherwise strong great country maintains peace, prosperity, stability and economic growth in double digits. Besides, it did not happen only this year. We enjoyed double-digit economic growth last year as well, which is naturally reflected on our people, our society.
Irakli Garibashvili highlighted the significance of the Black Sea Submarine Electricity Cable, by noting that this strategic project is a Georgian initiative.
"Also, I wish to highlight the launch of yet another strategic project. Some weeks ago, I was visiting Bucharest, Romania. Black Sea Submarine Electricity Project is our initiative - a Georgian initiative - my dear friends. I did have preliminary talks about it last year in Brussels, when I visited the city and presented it as one of the so-called flagship projects. Active negotiations started afterwards with our European partners, starting from our neighboring and friendly nation of Azerbaijan and naturally Romania, which is also our strategic partner and friendly nation. Later we progressed to a new stage and started a more active work together with Romania on the implementation of this project. You may well be aware that Azerbaijan joined the initiative and full support was declared by the EU. Hungary also joined the project and we believe that this will be one of the tangible, strategic and - I will not shy away from using the term of - historic projects that we will jointly implement. Naturally, it will all be reflected on our country and people" added the Prime Minister of Georgia.
The Head of Government of Georgia expressed his gratitude to the ambassadors for their service and noted that further improvement of social conditions of embassies and their employees is an aim eagerly aspired by the Government.
"We are doing our best to further improve the social condition of our embassies and their employees. Ilia Darchiashvili as a new portfolio minister is most actively engaged in addressing these matters. I wish to extend my gratitude to every staff member at our diplomatic missions. I know how hard it is to be away from your families, living and working overseas. We will do our best to create even greater comfort and better conditions to ease the burden of your main duty. Ilia [Minister of Foreign Affairs] has a lot of excellent initiatives. I guess we will have a discussion on them in a different format. I express full support to him and his initiatives. We will ensure maximum support and engagement at the level of the government. I want to sincerely thank you all, Dear Ambassadors, your staffers and wish you great success, peace and prosperity. Wishing you Happy New Year and Merry Christmas! Thank you! I wish you every success!" concluded the Prime Minister of Georgia.
The Conference of Ambassadors was launched by Ilia Darchiashvili, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. MP Shalva Papuashvili, Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia also addressed the diplomatic corps of Georgia stationed overseas.
Press Service of the Government Administration