Georgian EU Travel Violation Statistics not Alarming, says Euro-Integration Minister

Between March 28 and October 20, 161,885 Georgian citizens have traveled visa-free to the EU’s Schengen Zone. It is estimated that 16% of those who traveled during this time violated the Georgia-EU visa deal and did not return within the time limit of 90 days. 

These statistics are not exclusive to Georgia. The majority of countries that have been granted visa-free travel within the European Union have had similar violation figures, says Archil Karaulashvili, the Deputy State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Georgia. 

Karaulashvili says that the high numbers of Georgian citizens who have broken these rules is not alarming. 

"The statistics are not pleasant, of course, but it is not too alarming either. In fact, all countries who were given the EU visa-free regime had almost the same statistics, and sometimes even worse than us”, he said. 

He added by saying that the government is working hard to raise awareness of what could happen if citizens continue to break these rules. 

"We need to explain to people that asking for asylum, when Georgia is recognized by many countries as a safe state, is, in fact, nonsense”, Karaulashvili said. 

He then said that Georgians committing crimes abroad is a problem, but that they are acting to prevent jeopardizing the visa-free regime. 

"We are taking absolutely adequate steps to prevent such cases and if [crimes] are still committed, we will react to them properly”, he said.

By Tom Day