Rustaveli Avenue, named after the great medieval poet of the Golden Age of Georgia, has been on a war footing for a month. The reason why tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the center of Tbilisi is the Government’s insistence on introducing a law on “foreign agents”. A year ago the opposition, which considers it inspired by the Kremlin, managed to back down with massive demonstrations.
This week the police violently broke up the protests. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday he arrested 63 people. Yesterday morning tens of thousands of disaffected gathered in front of the Parliament in the most important anti-government demonstration of the year. Georgian and European Union flags were flying, and Ode to Joy, the anthem of the EU, could be heard. Riot police in this small former Soviet republic of the Caucasus (population 3.7 million) used tear gas and stun grenades. Also water cannons against a small group that tried to block the side entrance to the Parliament.
Levan Iosseliani, Public Defender of Georgia, called for an investigation into “disproportionate use of force”. Brutally attacked was Levan Khabeishvili, leader of the main opposition party, the United National Movement of imprisoned ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.
The EU and the United States have condemned the “violence” of the police. The high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, described it as “unacceptable” on Wednesday.
Supporters of the law, which is officially called the “transparency law on foreign influence”, claim that Georgia will strengthen its sovereignty. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze says he is not giving up on European integration. “If we do not defend the sovereignty of the State, it will happen to us like in Ukraine, and peace and European integration will be a thing of the past. Without sovereignty you cannot enter Europe”, he said.
Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the Georgian Dream government party and former prime minister, believes the West is trying to pit Georgia against Russia. At a rally on Monday, he promised to enter the EU in 2030. And he criticized “the non-transparent oenages”, for being an instrument of destabilization and “the main instrument for the appointment of a government of Georgia from the outside”.
The opposition, on the contrary, claims that the new rules are a copy of the law on “foreign agents” that has been in force in Russia since 2012 and that has served the Kremlin to blacklist the opposition and any dissenting voice. The Kremlin has said that Georgian law is not “Russian”.
According to the project, a non-profit organization or a media could be qualified as an organization that exercises the interests of a foreign power if more than 20% of its funding comes from outside the country. They should be registered with the Ministry of Justice at the risk of being sanctioned with fines of 10,000 to 25,000 lari (from 2,500 to 8,700 euros).
Mamuka Mdinaradze, a spokesman for the Georgian Dream parliamentary group, rejected criticism from Washington and Europe, claiming that there are similar laws in other countries, such as those in the US since the 1930s.
The former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan also passed a similar law in February. The difference is that it only applies to oenagés who participate in political activities. The Georgian draft does not include this clause. That is why the opposition criticizes that it can affect the majority of oenagés and media.
Georgia, which lost a brief war with Russia in 2008, has sought to deepen its relations with the West for two decades, since the 2003 Rose Revolution led by Saakashvili. This aspiration is part of its Constitution and more than 80% of Georgians, according to surveys, share it. In 2022, after the Russian army entered Ukraine, Georgia submitted its candidacy to the EU, and in 2023 it obtained the status of a candidate country.
The president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, asked Tbilisi yesterday to “maintain the course” towards the EU. In the Georgian capital, Gert Jan Koopman, director general of the Enlargement Directorate of the European Commission, warned that this project is unacceptable and would pose a serious obstacle to their hopes of accession.
On May 1, deputies approved the project in second reading. A third and definitive reading remains. To become law, it needs the signature of the president of the country, Salomé Zurabixvili, who is in conflict with the Government. He has already said that he will veto it. But Georgian Dream has enough of a majority to override the veto and get away with it.
