The Parliament of Georgia has adopted a law on foreign agents

On May 14, the Georgian Parliament adopted in the third and final reading a bill on foreign agents, which has been causing protests in Tbilisi for a month:   84 deputies voted in favor, and  30 against.  During the voting, there was a fight between deputies from the opposition and the ruling party.

Now the law must be signed by the country's president Salome Zurabishvili. She said she would veto it, but this would not prevent the ruling “Georgian Dream” party from bypassing the veto due to the majority in parliament.

The document is aimed at "organizations that carry out the interests of a foreign state" — NGOs and the media can be recognized as such if more than 20% of their funding comes from abroad.

The organizations affected by the project must register with the Ministry of Justice. Failure to comply with the law is fraught with a fine of 10 thousand to 25 thousand lari (from $3.7 thousand to $ 9.4 thousand).

Since April 15, rallies have been held in Tbilisi demanding that the law be revoked, as it already happened in 2023. The actions on the days of the second reading led to clashes between protesters and the police and to the fact that the European Union and the United States, condemning the actions of the security forces, supported the protesters and questioned Georgia's Euro-Atlantic perspective.

Today, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze held a two-hour meeting in Tbilisi with Jim O'Brien, head of the U.S. State Department's sanctions department. According to unofficial data, he tried to dissuade the Georgian authorities from adopting this law and threatened with sanctions.

O'Brien will hold meetings with the President, NGOs and the media, and opposition leaders. He will make a statement at a press conference in the evening.