Georgia is a country where there is no systematic persecution of citizens on political, racial, gender and other grounds. This proposal is now being passed in our parliament and will soon become a law - so that a citizen of Georgia will have to prove that he is persecuted as an individual and that human rights are violated in Georgia when going through asylum procedures", German Ambassador to Georgia Peter Fischer told Interpressnews, speaking about the issue of deportation of Georgian citizens from Germany.

As the ambassador noted, Georgia is one of the countries that have a high rate of asylum requests in Germany.

"The German government, the cabinet has decided to classify Georgia as a safe country of origin, which means that it is a country where there is no systematic persecution of citizens based on political, racial, gender and other characteristics. This proposal is now going through our parliament and will soon become a law. Georgia will join many other countries that we consider safe countries of origin. This means that in the future asylum procedures for Georgian citizens will be much faster. So, when going through the procedure, a citizen of Georgia will have to prove that he/she is persecuted as an individual and that human rights are violated in Georgia. In most cases, we expect that this will not be the case. If the asylum request is not granted, these people will have to leave Germany, and if they do not leave Germany, they will be deported. Behind that, Georgia is one of the countries that has a high rate of asylum requests in Germany, but what we call the recognition rate is very low, less than two percent. So, of all those Georgians who request asylum in Germany, only less than two percent get it. It will be impossible for these people to stay without a visa for longer than they are allowed. However, we certainly welcome Georgians in Germany. Many Georgians come to Germany to work or study. There is a legal way to come to Germany, and you know that it is possible to travel to Germany without a visa. The only thing we want is to make our asylum system more manageable, it is not only about Georgia, we have people from all over the world applying for asylum. The procedures take a long time and many people cannot get asylum because they are not persecuted in their home country, but they still stay in Germany for many years, which is a problem. So, Georgia will soon be classified as a safe country of origin", said Peter Fischer.