Today, the Parliament of Georgia hosts the Dutch students from the Applied Science Faculty of Leiden University. The Vice-Speaker, Ms. Manana Kobakhidze met the guests.

She spoke about: history of the Parliament, human rights and national strategy on human rights, gender issues, including women involvement in politics, foreign priorities, current situation on occupied territories, Georgia-Russia relations, upcoming Parliamentary elections etc.

As noted, EU and NATO integration is the choice of Georgian people and not of any concrete party. EUAA with the DCFTA component granted new opportunities for the country. “We work on legislation to further approximate it with EU standards. DCFTA enabled introduction of Georgian product to European market, though we shall provide products meeting European standards, which requires training for the farmers and we enjoy assistance of respective organizations and EC”.

NATO integration is one of the primary foreign priorities. “We have made large steps in terms of NATO relations. Let’s recall NATO-Georgia joint training center. We appreciate the NATO open door policy”.

Speaking about occupied territories, she noted that one of the main problems is violation of rights of ethnic Georgians, even further aggravated with wires along the administrative border and division of the villages by Russia. “We aspire to NATO but do not stand against any of the countries. We want to have NATO support in peace-keeping. Our aim is to restore trust with our Abkhazian and Ossetian brothers. There is no threat for them and this message is very important. Russia shall know that Georgia is an independent and sovereign state and it is up to us to choose membership of any of the organizations. Our referendum proves that Georgian people choose Euro-Atlantic future. We are against violence but unfortunately, in 2008 we encountered open aggression, so we will to solve all the problems in peaceful manner”.

She emphasized violation of rights of women and the legislative changes in this regards. One of the challenges for Georgia is the economic and social problems. “Business needs more guarantees to create more job opportunities and eliminate unemployment. Infrastructural problems still remain acute in highlands. It is necessary to develop the educational system, including in terms of vocational education”.

As to the upcoming Parliamentary, she stated that Georgia will pass one more successful test of democracy. “Georgia is a democratic state. We are responsible for free and transparency elections in 2016 and thus, we engaged monitoring groups and observers from various organizations. The elections shall be held in peaceful environ. The state allows all the parties delivering clear messages to their electors”.

Ms. Kobakhidze answered the questions.

After the meetings, the students were offered a short tour to the Parliament. The students are the members of the European Students’ Forum (AEGEE), unifying up to 10000 students in more than 200 cities. The organization aims to facilitate students in inter-culture exchange programs. AEGEE provided the Dutch students with the summer program to Tbilisi, Lagodekhi and Batumi. The aim is to get familiar with the Georgian culture, history and legislative activity.