2019-04-15

Mamuka Bakhtadze, Prime Minister of Georgia:

"I am delighted to be in Romania with an Official Visit as it is an outstanding partner and friend of Georgia.

We have special relations with Romania. Friendship between the Georgian and Romanian people has been developing over centuries. This visit is particularly symbolic to me as our countries are celebrating 300th Anniversary of friendship this year.

Naturally, when we talk about friendship of our nations and people, we cannot help recalling Anthim the Iberian, King Vakhtang VI, Constantin Brâncoveanu. Their contribution to the development of Georgian-Romanian relations is truly priceless.

I am thrilled that we are continuing the mission initiated by our great ancestors. Our relations are developing and we have a lot of common interests today.

At the same time, we embody the oldest cultures that are related by geography as well. Black Sea is creating unique opportunities to let us play a greater role not only in the development of bilateral relations, but also in the further deepening of economic relations with other countries.

Today, as never before, it is important to ensure security at the Black Sea and this is the message, which we have been trying to convey to our western friends for over years, as we believe that no security of Europe or Euro-Atlantic society may be deemed without security in the Black Sea region. Hence, it is particularly gratifying for us that context of the Black Sea is becoming more crucial as time passes.

We welcome the decision made by the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) at the Ministerial of Foreign Affairs held in Washington D.C. endorsing the relevant package, as it is aimed at a greater and more active engagement of NATO in the Black Sea region, along with an increased support towards Georgia and Ukraine. Herewith, I wish to use this opportunity and thank our Romanian friends for the solid support of our integration with NATO.

Political dialogue between Georgia and Romania may easily be labeled as being at the highest level today. It is important for us to further deepen the economic cooperation. We stand ready to have an ambitious agenda to develop the bilateral economic relations towards increasing the untapped potential of the Black Sea region to its highest level. Meeting held in Bucharest on March 4, 2019 is tremendously important within this context and Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Romania, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan issued a Joint Political Declaration on the development of a common transport corridor. It is particularly important for me as I was among the authors of this new corridor from my previous capacity as a CEO of the Georgian Railway JSC. It is particularly rewarding that this truly great idea is gradually getting to fruition.

We assign special importance to the interaction of Constanta with marine ports of Georgia, especially when we are building a deep-sea port in the country that is bound to create completely new opportunities of economic cooperation. At the same time, we have innovative projects in the energy sector that will lead to a much better energy security of EU and European family, by thereby strengthening the role of Georgia towards this end.

As a result of the aforesaid, naturally our desire is to make our bilateral relations strategic and this is our position, which we openly declare today. By transforming our shared efforts and relations into strategic partnership, we will develop all those significant issues that we discussed today and that are mutually and truly strategic both for Romania and Georgia.

We value the active efforts of Romania during its EU Presidency, as the idea and concept of Eastern Partnership (EP) need to be maintained at a high level. At the 10th Anniversary of the EP, we all agree that truly great progress has been achieved in many directions, however we also noted a new trend in the partnership of joint efforts, need to ignite new spark leading to a greater approximation and integration of Georgia with EU.

Georgia continues to successfully implement the EU-Georgia Association Agreement (AA). We wish to transform the degree of sectoral approximation to a substantially different level. This is the idea behind a Road Map presented by us recently in Brussels, which aims to ensure a greater approximation of Georgia with EU and I am sure that Romanian friends will actively support us in this.

Let me use this opportunity and thank our colleagues for their solid support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia. Current and most painful challenges of the country have been discussed at the meeting. Russian Federation continues to occupy 20% of our territories. Situation in terms of human rights is disastrous at the occupied territories of Georgia. It may be said that we are facing a humanitarian calamity in both occupied regions. Together with our friends we have designed a peace initiative predominantly aimed at stopping the humanitarian disaster witnessed at these territories. Russia fails to honor its commitments assumed in 2008 and refuses to withdraw its troops from the territory of Georgia.

We consistently pursue the policy of peaceful conflict resolution and remain grateful to the international community for standing by our side towards this end.

I wish to particularly thank our Romanian friends within the EU Monitoring Mission for the greatest contribution.

Madam Prime Minister, let me once again thank you for your warm hospitality. I am confident that our meeting and my visit will enable us to advance our relations to a new level by every dimension. Thank you enormously for your loyal friendship of Georgia!"

Vasilica Viorica Dăncilă, Prime Minister of Romania:

"Let me greet and welcome Mamuka Bakhtadze, Prime Minister of Georgia and visiting dignitaries. We have had a constructive meeting to discuss various topics. Current relations between Georgia and Romania have been reviewed, along with cooperation in different sectors: transport, energy and trade. Once again, we reiterated our support towards European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Georgia, reforms implemented by the country towards this end. We talked about the support of Eastern Partnership within the context of Romania serving as a Chairman of the Council of Europe from 2020. We stressed the aims and goals of this initiative. Discussions were also related to the security in the Black Sea region. In the Romanian perspective, prosperity and security of Georgia is utterly important for the stability and welfare of the entire region. Hence, we wish to further deepen our cooperation and support the integration of Georgia with NATO. Once again, we reassured the visiting Prime Minister in our support towards the territorial integrity of the country within its internationally recognized borders, which we fully respect. Our efforts will further deepen and strengthen to make our economic relations even more dynamic, increase trade volumes and export from Romania to Georgia - as it was the case in recent years. We wish to make the Inter-Governmental Commission interaction more frequent to boost the current potential even further. As for our relations in tourism or people-to-people interaction, these are indeed very important. We will support Romanian companies to embrace all the opportunities offered by Georgia. I wish to express my enormous gratitude to the Prime Minister of Georgia for his active support of the project of Caspian and Black Seas, which is a joint initiative with Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. We wish to further strengthen the mutual cooperation towards tourism, as it is a sector with tremendous opportunities.

We have also talked about bilateral relations in education and culture. We underlined the linkages between the Georgian and Romanian people. I wish to say with great joy that Anthim the Iberian, who was born in Georgia is the greatest representative of Romanian culture from middle ages. We are grateful to him for establishing a print in our country. I once again wish to thank greatly the Prime Minister of Georgia for visiting us. We will continue being your friends and partners. I am confident that this partnership will grow into a stronger bondage and reap very beneficial results both for Georgian and Romanian people."