On 24 April, the Georgian Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani has met with the European Commission official for Migration and Domestic Affairs, Simon Mordue, to discuss how to overcome recent difficulties in the EU-Georgia visa regime, reports agenda.ge.

“Today’s meeting is very important to work jointly with the representatives of the European Union to preserve the EU-Georgia visa waiver which has faced particular difficulties recently. This is the reality and our partners from the EU are saying that some of our citizens misuse this opportunity”, Tsulukiani said. She gave a guarantee to the EU officials that the Georgian government has already provided tough measures against the change of surnames and illegal stay abroad.

Following her meeting with Simon Mordue, Tsulukiani publicly expressed that her European partners claim that “some of our citizens are abusing the visa-free regime”. She also noted that “changes should be made so that those honest citizens, who are traveling to the Schengen zone and then come back can continue to benefit from the visa-free travel”.

“This [visa-free regime] does not confer the right to live [permanently in Europe] or to overstay the visa and seek work. This unique opportunity of visa-free travel is intended for tourism or other short-term purposes. We should do our utmost to maintain the visa-free regime for our young people”, concluded Tsulukiani.

On the same day, Mordue also met with Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani, stating that a number of EU member states have already expressed their concerns over the increased number of asylum seekers from Georgia. During the meeting they discussed ways to minimize and reduce the cases of misuse of the visa liberalization by Georgian citizens. “We have very important proposals, an action plan and I hope that our joint efforts will prove successful and the enforcement of a visa suspension mechanism will not be necessary”, Minister Zalkaliani added.

The difficulties in Georgia’s visa free regime with the EU were brought to light by a number of cases of illegal immigration and robbery by Georgian citizens in the EU (Caucasus Watch reported).