The Foreign Influence Transparency Law, a rule very similar to the one that the Kremlin has used in recent years to suppress all opposition in Russia, distances Georgia from the European Union. This Wednesday, Brussels urged the Government of the Caucasian country, led by a party that is getting closer to Moscow, to withdraw the regulation and has warned that, if it does not do so, it will freeze the offer of membership.
Citizen mobilizations against the law – approved on Tuesday – which have been harshly repressed, continue throughout the country. Meanwhile, the president, the pro-Western Salomé Zurabishvili, announced this Wednesday the formation of a united opposition coalition to try to defeat the pro-Russian government. “I have presented to our colleagues the plans for what a European platform should be, which I have been working on for several weeks. The platform has been established and will be officially presented to the population. The future involves mobilizing for the elections, in a peaceful way in which we all win, in order to take Georgia on the European path,” explained the president.
“The adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the path towards the EU,” EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said in a statement. “The choice of the path forward is in Georgia’s hands,” they added. The Caucasian country, with 3.6 million inhabitants, has been a candidate to join the community club since last December, but has not yet begun accession negotiations while waiting to complete a series of important reforms.
“The EU has clearly and repeatedly stated that the spirit and content of the law are not in line with the fundamental norms and values of the EU,” Borrell and Varhelyi continue. “It will undermine the work of civil society and independent media, while freedom of association and freedom of expression are fundamental rights that are at the heart of Georgia’s commitments as part of the Association Agreement and any avenue of accession to the EU,” they add. The EU has been slow to react due to pressure from Hungary – very close to Moscow – to soften the condemnation of the norm.
The regulation, similar to the Russian “foreign agents law”, implies that any non-commercial private association, project or initiative that receives more than 20% of its financing from abroad must register in a registry as an “agent of the interests of a foreign power” and the Ministry of Justice will carry out inspections – including investigations into its internal confidential documents and communications – every six months. This could jeopardize a multitude of projects ranging from agriculture to women’s associations, but above all to human rights and election monitoring organizations, hence the rush of the ruling party to approve it before the legislative elections in October. despite the fact that last year he had withdrawn a similar bill after the immense mobilizations against it.
One of the jokes circulating these days in Georgia is that the first to register on the list of “foreign agents” should be the Ministry of Defense, since an important part of its budget comes from subsidies from the Government of the United States, a country which over the last two decades has invested billions of euros in the Caucasian country to help it modernize its administration and its Armed Forces, especially since the 2008 war, during which Russia took control of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “The law does not affect state institutions or companies, but it will be applied against NGOs and the media,” explains Hans Gutbrod, professor at the Ilia Public University in Tbilisi. James O’Brien, sent by the US State Department this week to meet with Georgian leaders and the opposition, has warned the Executive that the 390 million dollars that Washington had budgeted this year in aid to Georgia are in danger.
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The EU is also deeply concerned about the drift of Georgia, considered, along with Moldova and Bosnia, one of the weakest links in Europe, as NATO has warned. His Government has moved for years in a precarious balance between Russia and the West, while the majority of citizens have been turning towards the EU and support for joining the community club is the majority. At a time when the Kremlin maintains the war in Ukraine and is intensifying its influence operations, Brussels fears that the approval of the foreign agents law is a clear step by the Government to place itself under Moscow’s influence umbrella. Hence, numerous European countries have mobilized and sent ministers and parliamentary delegations to Tbilisi in recent days to try to convince the Georgian authorities to back down.
Political movements
The Georgian Executive has assured that it is still on the path to enter the EU, but just a few weeks ago the founder of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, an oligarch who made his fortune in Russia and who has refused to explicitly condemn the invasion at large escalation over Ukraine, railed against the EU and NATO at a rally, accusing the West of being “the Global War Party” and “getting” the country into a war with Russia in 2008. Ivanishvili has also blamed to the West to keep his billionaire fortune blocked in Switzerland due to “sanctions”, which is not true: it is due to a long dispute he has had with the Credit Suisse entity since the last decade.
The Prime Minister, Irakli Kobajidze, has tried to appear conciliatory and said he is willing to take into account the recommendations of the Venice Commission regarding the controversial law if President Zurabishvili moderates her frontal opposition to the text. All this, despite the fact that the Council of Europe, to which the Venice Commission is attached, has said that the approval of the law without waiting for the advice of this committee of jurists – which plans to publish them next week – is “ very disappointing”.
The president has made it clear that she will not help the Georgian Dream Government “keep up appearances” and that she will veto the law. However, this will only buy some time, since the ruling party has a parliamentary majority and will be able to approve it again. However, her opposition to this and other laws approved by the Executive in the last year – such as the one that eliminates quotas for women on party lists, the one that allows the repatriation of capital without paying taxes (made ad hoc for the magnate Ivanishvili) or those that seek to punish “LGTBI propaganda”—have made her a relevant figure for the opposition, despite the fact that she was elected to the position in 2018 with the support of Georgian Dream, a party from which she has distanced herself. for its increasing authoritarianism and conservatism.
The Constitution of Georgia was modified in 2017 and several of the amendments that will complete the transformation of the political system from presidential to parliamentary will come into force in the October elections. Zurabishvili will finish his term in December and his successor will be appointed by a parliamentary majority. So all eyes are on the legislative elections at the end of October. The polls give the majority to Georgian Dream, but given that the partially single-member system is abandoned, the opposition has certain possibilities of preventing its absolute majority. The new electoral law prevents coalitions, so the opposition will have more chances if it comes together in a single list.
Already on Tuesday, after the approval of the controversial law, the leader of the Lelo opposition party, Mamuka Jazaradze, called for a “moratorium” on criticism between opposition parties and said he maintained “close coordination with the president” to form “a European platform of national resistance. After these statements, other parties have joined the call. Levan Jabeishvili, leader of the United National Movement – the main opposition force by far – positively valued this initiative to “unite the opposition against the regime” and assured that his formation – founded by former president Mikhail Saakashvili – is ready “for anything.” type of dialogue and all types of concessions.” “We understand that we have a very difficult fight ahead of us, which should not and cannot be a fight between parties,” he noted. However, there are doubts that the Movement will accept Zurabishvili as leader, since personal relations with her are not good.
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