Jean-Marie Guéhenno [Moderator]:

I'm now going to move on to the President of Georgia, Madame Salome Zourabichvili. Your country is a neighbor of Russia. It also has great European aspirations. It is a very narrow path, a difficult, challenging path that you have to lead. And your country, over the last couple of decades, has gone a long way. But at this particular moment in time, how do you see that path?

President Zourabichvili:

Thank you very much!

I'll speak in English, not because I cannot speak French, but because I think my audience in Georgia will have better interpreters in English. So, thank you very much for allowing me that.

Yes, Russia and the European Union - the choice has been made for as long as Georgia exists, I think, but it has been made clear since its independence in 1991. And it has been a constant choice. Two days ago, the European Commission finally gave a positive recommendation for the candidate status; the next day there was an opinion poll that showed not the usual 80% of supporters for the European Union, but 85%. I don't know whether we can do better.

But what’s more interesting is that 75% are in favor of the European Union because of security. And that is made even clearer because a day before, Russia, as it has this long habit, again on the delimitation line with our occupied territories, killed one of our citizens and took another one as a hostage. And that is something that is happening on and off. They have been taking the airport of Abkhazia and are in the process of transforming one of the ports on the Black Sea as a military base for its fleet on the Black Sea.

So that is Russia. And the hope is there with the European Union. And there is no doubt in the minds of the Georgians that security, despite the fact of what you were saying, is still not fully-fledged and I was on the other side when we were trying to push forward a security and defense policy many years ago. So, it will take time, probably as long as it will take for us to become a full member. But the process is there, and the European Union is seen from the outside as the place where you are finally secure. And I'm sure that this is the case for our partners in the eastern part of the European Union that joined a few years ago.

And I'm sure that's how Ukraine and Moldova feel today toward the European Union, that there is a kind of red line beyond which Russia cannot reach and that Russia is not changing is a fact of our life. It has remained as an imperialist power, maybe partly because the European and Western powers, in general, were, as it's described in a book by Sylvie Kauffmann, “Les aveuglés” for a very long time. But now that they have discovered the reality of Russia, we have to know that it's a reality that will not change unless finally, Russia recognizes that it has, like any other nation in the world, borders that it has to respect. And if you take and ask any Russian to draw a map of their country, some will include Ukraine, some will include Georgia, and some will include something else. They do not know. And it's our duty, the duty of the European Union if it wants tomorrow to reconstruct some form of architecture on the continent of Europe, to make sure that finally Russia understands that. And I think that will be the major objective of the peace negotiations. When it comes, when Ukraine considers that it has reached the aim of defending sovereignty and the integrity of its territory, then at the peace negotiations, we all have to make sure that Russia leaves all occupied territories and recognizes where its borders are.

And that's the beginning of mutual respect with neighbors. That's the beginning of cooperation. That is the absolute necessity if the European Union wants tomorrow to have a black Sea that has become a European sea, a sea of cooperation and connectivity, as we say, all that we want because that's a necessity for tomorrow's world. But that will not happen if we do not move that Russia, and push that Russia to some form of normality.

Thank you!