It is the most ominous step yet in a series of political dramas that have raised doubts about Georgian leaders’ intentions towards joining the EU
wants to be part of the European Union, it has a strange way of showing it. Over the past few days the country’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, has started to push a law through parliament that would brand media and, and prompted huge demonstrations in the capital, Tbilisi. Georgia’s American and European partners have objected, publicly and privately.
That this is happening at such a critical juncture for Georgia makes the legislation all the more inexplicable. The country is trying to implement reforms that thehas demanded as conditions of it becoming a formal candidate for membership. Georgia has until the autumn to comply. The foreign-agent law would be a backward step on two reforms Brussels demands: freedom of the media, and of civil society. Indeed, the move almost looks like a deliberate act of self-sabotage.
The law was rushed through its first reading on the evening of March 7th, two days before the debate was supposed to take place, and with little advance notice. Thousands of protesters headed to the parliament building, chanting “Georgia!” and shouting “Russians!” at thes inside.
Georgia’s opposition regularly accuses Georgian Dream of being in cahoots with Russia. Western diplomats are convinced that the party remains committed to a pro-West orientation. But they also believe that the isolated Mr Ivanishvili, having drawn paranoid conclusions from his banking troubles, is behind the recent anti-Western turn.
“Are there people who believe they would be better off, that they could achieve their personal goals, if [Georgia] were not in the? Yes,” said one Western diplomat. Is Mr Ivanishvili one of those people? “I don’t know, he’s a complicated character. But he definitely has advisers who are”.bid would further strengthen anti-European forces in the country, and so the club’s leaders may have little choice but to approve it.
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