On June 7, former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili encouraged the European Union to award Georgia candidate status because "this status would be a transformational force and an instrument of change." 

Additionally, Saakashvili, who is now a politician in Ukraine, urged the EU to award Ukraine candidate status in a Facebook post: "I am now serving an unfair sentence, but both of my home countries, Ukraine and Georgia, have a chance to join the EU." This has been the goal of both Christian and freedom-loving countries for a century."

He believes that the EU should take this move despite the fact that it would result in his protracted incarceration and health worries, which he considers insignificant in comparison to the greatest historical challenge and promise he has spent his whole conscious existence working towards.