Parliament official: legislative body will withdraw deoligarchisation bill if European Commission considers it “unnecessary”

The Committee Chair responded to the comments by saying if they meant the Commission said the bill was “not necessary, then we will withdraw it”, while adding “if they say that it is necessary, they should explain to us how it is necessary”. Photo: Parliament of Georgia

Agenda.ge, 13 Jun 2023 - 13:43, Tbilisi,Georgia

Irakli Kadagishvili, the Chair of the Rules and Procedural Issues Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, on Tuesday said the legislative body would withdraw the bill on deoligarchisation, a part of conditions for the country to obtain the European Union membership candidate status, if the European Commission considered it “unnecessary” for the country.

Kadagishvili’s comments followed the final opinion by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe on the bill, which on Monday said the Georgian authorities had “chosen to tackle the destructive influence of oligarchisation through a [...] ‘personal approach’” with the bill “[r]ather than pursuing [a] multi-sectoral, ‘systemic’ approach” to the issue.

The Committee Chair responded to the comments by saying if they meant the Commission said the bill was “not necessary, then we will withdraw it”, while adding “if they say that it is necessary, they should explain to us how it is necessary”. 

The Venice Commission does not have a problem with the legal status of the bill - it has a problem with whether or not there is a need for a law that personally defines who can be an oligarch”, the Parliament official noted, adding the Parliament would approve the bill and wait for the position of the European Commission on the matter.

In his turn, Mikheil Sarjveladze, the Chair of the Parliament's Committee on Human Rights, cited Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, as having referred to the bill as a “good” legislative piece. 

Sarjveladze added the attitude had created expectations that Ukraine, which has been working on its version of the bill, would start working on its implementation, and noted it was “unclear” why the opinion of Georgia’s Western partners “would be different” for the domestic version of the legislative initiative.