A total of 220,000 people have benefited from visa liberalization, – Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze told reporters at the NATO-EU Information Center. 

“220,000 persons have benefited from visa liberalization. This is really a great success, a great opportunity. These visits mainly served tourism goals, deepening of business relationships and cultural connections, or other short-term visits. There are a number of requests for asylum in the EU. They are seeking asylum in a wrong, unreasonable way. The request for asylum is satisfied only if a person is pursued in his/her country due to political pressure, restriction of political freedom and violations of human rights.

These visits mainly served tourism goals, deepening of business relationships and cultural connections

Consequently, this requirement is often illegitimate and is not satisfied. So this is a lottery for these citizens, they spend their little resources to arrive and ask asylum. Finally, their demand is not satisfied. So for them it is a risk, danger. We want to warn them once again not to yield to false information, false promises from mediators, to better understand the goal of their visit to EU member states, ” – Janelidze said.

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