On 20 July, a mission of the supremacy of EU law arranged at Lithuania's
initiative to help Georgia establish international standards in the
field of law enforcement started its work in Tbilisi. This is the first
mission of this kind as well as the first EU mission in Eastern Europe.
Lithuanian representative Tomas Baranovas, former Director of the
Justice Ministry's Legal Institutions Department, has been appointed
Deputy Head of the Mission. "EU experts closely cooperating with Georgian
authorities will help to reform the state's legal system and establish
international and EU standards in the field of law enforcement.
Implementing Georgian legal reform, among other things, it will be
referred to the Lithuanian Seimas-approved guidelines of Lithuanian
legal system reform and principles of its implementations," Lithuanian
MFA Security Policy Department official Gediminas Varvuolis noted.
At the Lithuanian initiative, the EU decided in mid-June to send a group
of European Security and Defence Policy experts to Georgia to draft
guidelines of the country's legal reforms. The EU's aim was to use the
possibilities of cooperation with the new democratically-elected
Georgian administration and test in practice EU crisis management
capacities that are being developed. The mission will last a year, and
then might be extended.