On December 5, visit of the Prime Minister of Georgia Vladimer Gurgenidze started in Brussels. He met with the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to discuss the issues related to mutual cooperation. According to the prime minister's words, NATO is expecting Georgia to conduct the one month period prior to the elections in a smooth manner and accomplish the election process through democratic and transparent ways which will enable NATO to continue the intensive dialogue and successful work with our country further, in all directions.
At the meeting with the Vice-President European Commission, European Commi-ssioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Mr. Franco Fratini, the parties discussed the problems of drug-trafficking and illegal migration; they also touched upon the issue of simplification of the visa regime. As it has been emphasized, in case Georgia complies to the conditions put forward by the European Commission, the Commission is ready to establish a special center in Georgia, which will be authorized to issue all kinds of visas to any of the Shengen countries. The Vice-President of the EU Commission underlined that it is their proposal to review the conditions of the visa regime and the fact that Georgia is already issuing the biometric passports, is of paramount importance to them for security reasons.
After the meetings, Vladimer Gurgenidze stated that the meeting with Mr. Fratini proved to be utterly matter-of-fact. Obviously, he is very much willing that Georgia reaches concrete results through the directions that he had discussed. The conversation embraced a number of topics interwoven indeed (biometric passports and protection of the borders of our country, in the conflict regions included).
During his stay in Brussels, Vladimer Gurgenidze also held working meetings with the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the EU Parliament Mr. Jaeck Saryuzs-Wolski and the EU Commissioner on energy Mr. Andris Pielbalgs.
"All the meetings that we have conducted here were the meetings with friends and partners of our country and an open conversation is always the manner that the friends choose while discussing various matters. Therefore, a lot of concerns as well as sympathies were expressed about future developments in Georgia; many questions were posed on the needs of future assistance to the country, yet those talks implied no tendency of changing attitude or turning our relations to negative", - the prime minister emphasized.
At the end of the working day, the prime minister participated in the inauguration of the new building of the Georgian Embassy.
The press center of the Chancellery of the Government of Georgia