EU ‘considers all options’ as Georgia’s parliament votes through controversial ‘foreign agent’ law

Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday (28 May) overruled a presidential veto and adopted its controversial ‘foreign agent’ law, which had sparked weeks of mass demonstrations and international condemnation.

The vote went through with the ruling majority of Georgian Dream (GD) lawmakers voting 84 to 4, with most opposition lawmakers abstaining, to pass the bill after overriding a veto by the country’s President Salome Zourabishvili.

It comes after the Council of Europe’s top constitutional law body, the Venice Commission, had called on the government of the country not to pass the draft bill in its current form as it would show “fundamental flaws” that risk undermining democratic standards.

Under the new legislation, civil society groups that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad will now be branded as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

Georgia’s Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili (GD) is expected to sign it into law shortly.

As protesters were gathered in front of the Georgian Parliament building on Tuesday, opposition lawmakers read out the names of the 84 MPs who voted in favour of overriding the presidential veto.

With five months to go until Georgia’s parliamentary elections, opposition forces earlier this month had pledged to rally together to get the country “back on the European track”.

EU ‘considering all options’

Wednesday’s decision came despite weeks of ongoing demonstrations and warnings from the EU and the US that the measure would undermine Georgia’s EU membership bid.

Brussels had called on Tbilisi to withdraw the law, warning the passing of the bill would hamper Tbilisi’s hopes of joining the bloc in the near future.

Reacting to the passage of the bill, EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell and the European Commission said in a joint statement the bloc “deeply regrets that the Georgian Parliament decided to override the President’s veto on the law on transparency of foreign influence, and to disregard the Venice Commission’s detailed legal arguments leading to a clear recommendation to repeal this law”.

“We urge the Georgian authorities to reverse this trend and to return firmly on the EU path. There is still time to change the dynamics – but a strong commitment by the governing authorities is needed,” the statement read.

The EU and the bloc’s member states “are considering all options to react to these developments”, it added.

While the US has announced it will impose travel bans and personally targeted sanctions on politicians “complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia,” EU foreign ministers repeated the bloc’s calls on Monday (27 May) and will likely decide on potential measures in June.

Puts accession bid ‘on hold’

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the step “effectively puts Georgia’s accession to the EU on hold, with no benefit for anybody – almost anybody.”

His Baltic counterpart, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, stated “we are dismayed by Georgia’s Parliament’s choice not to use the historic opportunity to move on with the European integration & to leave its people in the enlargement waiting room for indefinite future.”

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen also echoed his counterpart stating that “unless the ruling party changes its course of action, Georgia will not advance on path to EU membership.”

[Edited by Chris Powers]

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