The EU warned that Georgia’s new “foreign agent” law has put Georgia’s bid for EU membership into jeopardy. The European Council specified that the new “foreign agent” law “represents backsliding” on Georgia’s path to EU membership. At present, the EU announced that the new law has led to “a halt of the accession process” to the EU.
Amid civil protest against the new law, the EU “calls for an end to the increasing acts of intimidation, threats and physical assaults” and reiterated its “steadfast solidarity” with the Georgian people.
The controversial “foreign agent” law was passed earlier this year on May 21 amid large-scale protests. The law mandates any civil society organisation, such as NGOs, that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “organisations acting in the interest of a foreign power”, incur additional audits, or face punitive fines. Many dubbed the new law, the ‘Russian law’ due to its similarities with an existing piece of Russian legislation.
Constitutional lawyer at the University of Tbilisi Davit Zedelashvili hypothesised that the adoption of “foreign agent” law “hinted” that the regime intended “to use this tool to crack down on election monitoring organisations, expand electoral fraud legislation and its willingness to use mass repression to overcome public protests.” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk similarly warned that the bill “undermines the freedoms of expression and association” by imposing an overbroad regulation that stigmatizes organizations as foreign agents.
Prior to the passage of the “foreign agent” law, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stated that “In 2024 we will apply for the EU’s full membership” in a Europe Day Statement. The European Parliament also supported a motion granting the European perspective to Georgia, edging them further in the application process.