Georgian Prime Minister To Push “Foreign Agents” Bill Forward Amidst Opposition Protest

Irakli Kobakhidze, the prime minister of Georgia, vowed on Sunday to move forward with the “foreign agents” bill that has caused a political crisis. Opponents of the bill staged one of the biggest demonstrations since the country’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union. Around 50,000 opponents participated in the demonstration on last Saturday.

At a televised conference, Kobakhidze declared that the ruling Georgian Dream party will ensure the bill’s passage in a third reading this week and threatened to prosecute protestors should they use violence.

In order to stop MPs from entering the building on Monday, when they are scheduled to start debating the bill’s third reading, the opposition in Georgia has called on opponents of the measure to hold an all-night demonstration outside the parliament.

The bill mandates that organizations that obtain above 20 percent of their money from foreign sources register as foreign influence agents or risk incurring hefty fines.

The bill is condemned as autocratic and Russian-inspired by the opposition in Georgia as well as by Western nations. Its detractors compare it to Russia’s 2012 “foreign agent” statute, which has been employed to harass Kremlin adversaries of Vladimir Putin.

It is now widely believed that the outcome of the bill issue will determine whether Georgia, which has always enjoyed cordial relations with the West, keeps pursuing membership in the European Union and NATO or instead forges closer connections with Russia.

The measure could endanger Tbilisi’s future integration with the EU, according to repeated statements from the EU, which gave Georgia candidate status in December.