Parliament official: Russia’s aggression against Georgia, Ukraine demonstrates necessity of “firm, consistent” strategy on wider Black Sea Security

Irakli Beraia, the Chair of the Defence and Security Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, on Monday said Russia’s aggression against Georgia and Ukraine demonstrated the necessity of “firm and consistent” strategy on the wider Black Sea Security.

In his speech at the Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence in Bruges, Beraia highlighted security and defence as the “key” areas of the Georgia- European Union cooperation, and further noted that the military and security capabilities of the European Union had played a “crucial” role for Georgia-EU shared security and stability.

The Parliament official stressed the Georgian Government’s “commitment” to achieving the “highest” convergence with the bloc’s policies and standards.

“As threats to our shared values grow in number and scale, becoming even more unpredictable, the robust military and security capabilities of the EU play a crucial role for our shared security and stability. Georgia has been successfully contributing to the EU's peace and stability efforts worldwide and we seek to further deepen our mutually reinforcing and beneficial partnership”, Beraia told the Conference.

“My country has been adapting to deteriorated security environment through bald steps, including but not limited to refining legislative and institutional framework of our defence and resilience, making it more interoperable with EU and NATO, increased defence spending, capabilities to counter hybrid threats, measures to enhance cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection and achieve stronger societal resilience. EU’s robust support will remain instrumental in further strengthening our capacities in all those areas”, he continued.

Beraia further added that Russia’s aggression against Georgia in 2008 and the ongoing aggression against Ukraine demonstrated the necessity of a “firm and consistent” strategy on the wider Black Sea Security.

“We look forward to working with the EU on concrete dimensions within the Strategic Compass, including promoting security in the Black Sea, strengthening resilience, upgrading cooperation in countering hybrid threats and exploring new cooperation possibilities, such as involving Georgia in the PESCO [Permanent Structured Cooperation] projects. We would also highly welcome increased EU and NATO engagement in the region and their synchronised efforts in Georgia”, Beraia concluded.