(Tbilisi) Tens of thousands of people gathered on Friday in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to celebrate the granting of candidate status for entry into the European Union, in which they see protection against their neighbor Russian.
Waving Georgian and European flags, the demonstrators met in a square in the city center, noted an AFP journalist.
“Joining the EU may still be a distant prospect but the first step has been taken and we are happy,” said a young woman present, Teona Mgeladzé, 29 years old.
Lamara Instkirveli, a 70-year-old retiree, said she hoped that “our grandchildren will live in a fully European Georgia”.
“We, the older generations, spent our lives under the communist dictatorship,” when this Caucasian country, independent since 1991, was a Soviet republic, she explained.
In front of the crowd, Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili “congratulated” the Georgians for “this historic event”.
“Long live a united, strong and European Georgia!” “, he said.
The day before, European leaders decided to grant this candidate status to Georgia, which has been demanding it since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Its pro-Western president, Salomé Zourabichvili, immediately judged that a “huge step” had thus been reached and assured that “the unshakeable will of the Georgian people” had been expressed.
Illustration of the deep political divisions existing in Georgia, the head of state, opposed to the Georgian Dream party, which dominates the government, was however not invited to speak during this gathering.
“It’s a very beautiful celebration,” she told journalists.
The conflict in Ukraine has created serious concerns in Georgia, where the memory of the intervention of Russian troops in 2008 and the short war that followed remains fresh.
In June 2022, the EU had only granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova and asked Tbilisi for judicial and electoral reforms, more freedom for the press and less power for the oligarchs.
Membership in the European Union is enshrined in Georgia’s constitution and supported, according to polls, by around 80% of its population.