On the 29 of September 2017 at the headquarters of the Pulaski Foundation a round-table meeting took place with the Georgian Minister of European & Euro-Atlantic Integration – Mr. Victor Dolidze.
President of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation Zbigniew Pisarski, opened the meeting by greeting the guest, who in his career had not only been frequently close to Polish issues but also had been instrumental in establishing visa-free transit between Georgia and the EU. Mr. Dolidze also underlined the prevailing consensus in Poland about the support of the Western ideals in Tbilisi’s politics.
The Minister began the meeting with the presentation on ‘The New Information Environment and the role of Strategic Communication’. There he showed the struggles and problems standing in the way of Georgia’s presentation of alignment provisions to the EU and NATO, considering todays information environment which is influenced by Russian propaganda and the easiness of the spreading of false information. The Georgian delegation was especially interested in the Polish experience of conducting successful communication in difficult surroundings.
The representatives of think-tanks and academic centres who came to the meeting (The Centre of International Relations, Collegium Civitas, The German Marshall Fund, The Euro-Atlantic Association, among others) presented their observations and experience and conclusions from their research in the area.
For both Minister Dolidze and the Polish participants of the meeting, the exchange of experience was exceptionally valuable and inspirational.
Victor Dolidze has been working professionally with European and NATO institutions for many years. He worked, among other things, as Deputy Head of the NATO Department at the Political-Military Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (1997-1998); Head of the Department of Bilateral Relations at the Political-Military Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (1998-2000); Counselor of the Embassy of Georgia in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg; member of the Georgian Mission to NATO (2000-2001); Political Counselor in the Mission of Georgia to NATO (2001-2004); Director of the Department of International Security at the Georgia National Security Council (2004-2005); Ambassador of Georgia in Austria and Hungary and Permanent Representative of Georgia to the OSCE and other international organizations in Vienna (2005-2009).
In the years 2012-2015 he was the President of the Committee for European Integration in the Parliament of Georgia. Since March 2015, he has co-chaired the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly, the assembly of the representatives of the European Parliament and the parliaments of the countries participating in the Eastern Partnership.