European Union and Georgia: Together Against COVID-19

Abstract

The situation caused by the pandemic has greatly aggravated many social, economic and environmental problems already existing in modern society. In the difficult-to-predict situation created (rapidly increasing number of infected people, deterioration of population health, increase in mortality), the pandemic turned out to be a great challenge not only for the world health system, but also caused great damage to the global economy (according to experts, its decline amounted to 4%). Obviously, Georgia faced an unprecedented challenge and had to solve a number of atypical tasks.

Fighting the difficulties caused by the pandemic required significant financial resources, which was a special challenge for the country with the economic potential of Georgia. In particular, in order to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic, it was necessary to implement measures to contain the virus and mobilize additional medical resources, social support of citizens, save businesses and promote the economy. In order to alleviate the damage caused by the pandemic in 2020, the Georgian authorities developed an anti-crisis plan, and in order to finance the measures provided for in this plan, changes were made in the state budget. In the 2020 anti-crisis budget, an additional 5.6 billion GEL was planned to be mobilized, and 3.4 billion GEL was determined for measures to be taken directly to fight the pandemic. The paper discusses the support provided by the European Union to Georgia in the socio-economic field during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.