Ruling party to create parliamentary group for de-oligarchisation bill

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said that a working group would be created with the Parliament’s Legal Issues Committee to work on a bill intended to address the European Council’s requirement for the country to curb “excessive influence of vested interests in economic, political, and public life”.

Kobakhidze’s announcement of the “de-oligarchisation bill” comes following the inclusion of the condition in the European Council’s set of requirements for granting the country the European Union membership candidate status later this year.

The Political Council of the ruling party met on Friday to discuss the matter of fulfilling the 12-point conditions outlined by the European Council.

A working group will be created with the [Parliament’s] Legal Issues Committee, which will include representatives of all parliamentary parties and the civil sector. The working group will work on the de-oligarchisation bill, which will be submitted to the Parliament of Georgia as an initiative no later than October 5, and will be adopted by the Parliament no later than November 29”, Kobakhidze said.

On June 24, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said “de-oligarchisation” was “not really” a challenge in the country, but vowed to have consultations with European Union bodies over the matter to “get more specifics and explanations”.