Only six months after Georgians celebrated EU acceptance of their formal candidacy for membership, they are out on the streets of Tbilisi again to protest what many see as an attempt by their government to stymie prospects for that application’s success.
The deeply unpopular Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, the first reading of which was pushed through parliament last week, sets in place Putin-like curbs on foreign NGOs, requiring think tanks, media outlets and campaign groups receiving funding from abroad to declare themselves as “foreign agents”. Brussels has warned such human rights infringements are incompatible with conditions set out when candidacy was granted. EU council president Charles Michel said the new bill “will bring Georgia further away from the EU and not closer”.
Recent polls suggest support for EU membership is as high as 89 per cent, although the governing Georgia Dream party, facing elections in October, is sceptical and has refused to back EU sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.
Georgian prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze is standing firm, accusing NGOs of attempting to stage revolutions in Georgia twice, of promoting “gay propaganda” and of attacking the Georgian Orthodox Church.
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Georgian Dream is widely considered to be under the control of pro-Kremlin oligarch and former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose fortune is worth the equivalent of a third of the country’s gross domestic product. Calls by the EU for the country’s “deoligarchisation”, largely interpreted as meaning limiting Ivanishvili’s power, have also gone unheeded.
Last March, the government was forced to “unconditionally” withdraw an almost identical bill after street protests that saw riot police clash with crowds. Now it has been retabled and for the last ten days, large street protests have resumed. At the same time, the government has put forward legislation that would ban the recognition of same-sex relationships and impose tough restrictions on the LGBTQ+ community.