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5/23/2011
The Presidents of Georgia and Hungary held a joint press conference

Mikheil Saakashvili and Pal Schmitt held a joint press conference after the official negotiations between the Hungarian and Georgian sides were over. Pal Schmitt stated that Hungary openly supports Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty during the discussion with journalists. He positively evaluated reforms and changes that Georgia carries out. The President of Georgia thanked his Hungarian counterpart for the support and expressed his readiness for Georgia to share Hungary's experience in the process of reforms and added that Georgia is ready to share its own experience with official Budapest.

"This is great chance for me to express my goodwill towards you. The progress taking place in your country is very important. As you know reforms are never carried out without pain - we have such experience. However because of this reforms Georgia became number one reformer country and corruption doesn't exist in a country where it was on high level any more; criminal rate is four times less compare to previous years. We have lower rate of criminal than they have in other European countries - among them Germany and France. Hungary is one of the reformer countries throughout the world like us and we have much in common", the President of Georgia stated.  

Pal Schmitt called Mikheil Saakashvili's visit to Hungary historical and noted that Hungary supports Georgia's integration to Euro-Atlantic structures. 

"This is a historical visit and new perspective for strengthening our diplomatic relations. President Saakashvili's visit is quite symbolic. I want to add that those events and changes that take place in Georgia are interesting and convincing. Your country became an important transit corridor. Hungary is interested in Nabucco and other transit projects. We have huge potential in regards of trade. First direct flight should start between our countries. Hungary supports Georgia's integration to Euro-Atlantic structures, its territorial integrity and sovereignty", the President of Hungary stated.

Mikheil Saakashvili thanked the President of Hungary for the invitation and noted that relations between two countries should develop more and deepen in regards of friendship between the people as well as in political and economic issues.

"I am thankful for everything what Hungary did for Georgia during a direct intervention. The leader of opposition by that time Victor Orban made loudest and strongest statements in support of Georgia among all statements all around the world. After an open phase of war started number one country that sent an official delegation to Georgia and opened an Embassy in Georgia was Hungary. This happened in October 2008. It was quite symbolic, when Georgia was threatened to be evaporated from world map - Hungarian representatives came there, opened an Embassy and had not changed any of their diplomatic plans. It is also symbolic that in those conditions, when all type of provocations are carried out against Georgia, all type of pressure - starting from terrorist attacks finishing with economic and other type of limitations - we still develop our relationship, still get very strong support from foreign countries on our integration to NATO and EU. I once again want to repeat what I said before - this is a very reformative country and very interesting changes are taking place there. So my visit in some regards is sharing our experience and I want to study Hungarian lessons. By the way the visit of the Minister of Internal Affairs is planned here soon and we are waiting for Hungarian Minister of Internal Affairs as well in order to share police reform experience. We have hosted the Speaker of Hungarian Parliament recently and we spoke much about Georgian reforms. He was interested how had we managed to carry out reforms in the conditions of so much pressure and how we still manage to develop in such a fast way and overcome so many barriers. Sure these relationships must continue - we are not only sharing our experience wit Hungary, but we observe their reforms with great attention, extremely difficult reforms carried out in EU and in European context. We want to learn from our Hungarian friends. Sure, Georgia's reforms that turned into a center of gravity for many countries within the region was a result of many other experiences, achievements and analysis of mistakes of many countries and people that was implemented in context of our country. I want to thank the President of Hungary for the invitation. We are expecting Prime Minister Victor Orban in Tbilisi as the leading reformer of Europe and the author of most interesting experiment in Europe. So, we will continue this very interesting discussion within the context of Georgia soon", Mikheil Saakashvili stated.  




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