Parliament Speaker: MEPs statement on transparency bill “cynical”

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Thursday said a joint critical statement by several members of the European Parliament on the reintroduction of a bill on the transparency of foreign influence in the country was “cynical”.

Papuashvili’s comments followed the statement that on Thursday said the bill ran against Georgia’s ambitions for European Union membership and jeopardised the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration.

[The MEPs in question] sit on the board of the European Endowment for Democracy, and they are the heads of the board. We know that this organisation directly funded the Shame movement”, he said in reference to a domestic opposition initiative.

“If they fund the Molotov cocktail campaign, [and] they hide it, then they come out cynically and make statements that [the bill] is not in line with European values. Is throwing Molotov cocktails [at police officers] in line with European values?”, the lawmaker added in reference to the activist group.

The Georgian Parliament on Wednesday approved the first of several readings of the bill that has sparked public protests and criticism by some of the country’s foreign partners.

The legislative piece calls for registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they derive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, and was supported by 83 MPs in the 150-member lawmaking body.