“Today, we have the honor to host the President of the Federal Council of the Parliament of Austria, Mme. Claudia Arpa. We are delighted of the intensive development of bilateral relations between Georgia and Austria at the executive and legislative levels”, - the Speaker, H.E. Shalva Papuashvili stated at the briefing after the meeting with the President of the Federal Council of Austria, Mme. Claudia Arpa.

Speaker Papuashvili stressed the importance of the recent high-level historical visits, namely, the first official visit of the Prime Minister of Georgia to Austria in July 2022, in response to which, the Federal Chancellor served his first counter visit to Georgia in January 2023.

“It is noteworthy that we hosted my counterpart, the President of the National Council of Austria, Wolfgang Sobotka this June within the framework of the “Slavkov trilateral”. Now, we are pleased to host the President of the Federal Council of Austria, thus, opening another window of opportunity for us to further enhance our strong friendship. We are grateful that Austria is an intact supporter of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia, and the non-recognition policy of our occupied territories”, - the Speaker stated.

He highlighted the support of Austria for the European choice of Georgia and extended his hopes that Austria will further stand beside Georgia for our successful progress to the next EU membership stages.

“We appreciate the years-long engagement of the Austrian Development Agency in Georgia and value successful projects undertaken in the agrarian and environmental spheres; we are pleased that Georgia remains a priority country. At the meeting, we held an in-depth conversation about the progress of Georgia on the EU integration path and against the current complicated geopolitical situation, we underlined the importance of the EU candidate status for Georgia”.

As the Speaker underlined, the parties expressed their commitment to further boosting bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

“We accentuated that we intend to spare no effort to bolster parliamentary relations, including through the Friendship Groups. We also expect the implementation of joint events that aim at raising awareness among the youth of democracy and encouragement of civil education. The letter of intent concerning the hereof plan we signed during the visit of my counterpart, Mr. Wolfgang Sobotka. I express my gratitude to my colleague for visiting and supporting Georgia and her commitment to further enhancing cooperation between our countries”, - Shalva Papuashvili noted.

As Mme. Arpa underlined, that the meeting with Speaker Papuashvili was highly interesting.

“We congratulate Georgia on receiving the positive recommendation on the EU candidate status; we expect the next step in December and this is the decision to be made by the EU member states. Georgia needs to keep its successful fulfillment of the set-out homework, and since we believe that Georgia will further comply with these priorities, the decision of December 15 will be positive”, - she stated.