Foreign agent law will hurt EU candidacy ambitions, Georgia warned

THE European Union urged Georgia yesterday to withdraw its controversial “foreign agents” law and warned that the measure would set back the country’s ambitions to join the bloc.

On Tuesday, Georgia’s parliament passed the third and final reading of the bill, which would require organisations receiving more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, imposing onerous disclosure requirements and punitive fines for violations.

Georgia’s opposition parties called for fresh protests yesterday, the latest in a series of near-nightly rallies that have sparked a spiralling political crisis in the South Caucasus country.

“The adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the EU path,” said a statement from Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body.

“The choice on the way forward is in Georgia’s hands. We urge the Georgian authorities to withdraw the law.”

Meanwhile, the British Government has been urged by MPS to strengthen its own response and summon Sophie

Katsarava, the Georgian ambassador to London, for a dressing down.

In a House of Commons debate on Wednesday, Alicia Kearns, the Tory chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, said the “utterly shameful” crackdown should be condemned as she called for the summons.

Leo Docherty, the armed forces minister, insisted the Government had “expressed our concerns” to the ambassador but he did not commit to summoning her. He said: “We, of course, expressed our concerns about the direction of travel with regard to protests in Georgia, and the Foreign Office

I know has made those representations to the ambassador here and will continue to keep a watching brief on that issue.” Sir Ben Bradshaw, the Labour

MP for Exeter, said: “The British Government, unlike the American government, doesn’t seem to be doing any recalibration at all with the current

Georgian regime, which is beating up its own citizens in the streets of Tbilisi.

“I mean, why hasn’t he summoned the Georgian ambassador in London? What action has he taken, rather than just words, to make our views completely clear to the current Georgian government that their behaviour and this legislation is unacceptable?”

Mr Docherty later said that the Government would “ensure” that Georgia changed path “for their own interest”.

If enacted, the legislation would force the press and civil society groups that receive more than 20 per cent of their funding from overseas to register as “organisations serving the interests of a foreign power”.

In Tbilisi this week riot police have repeatedly clashed with demonstrators outside parliament. Salome Zurabishvili, the Georgian president, who is at loggerheads with the government, has vowed to veto the law, although the ruling Georgian Dream party could override this.

On Tuesday, Jim O’brien, the US assistant secretary of state, warned Georgia not to become an adversary of the West by falling in line with Moscow and said aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars could be withdrawn.

‘Why hasn’t he summoned the Georgian ambassador? What action has he taken, rather than just words? ’