Reuters says Georgia's parliament voted on Tuesday to override a presidential veto of a bill on “foreign agents” that has plunged Georgia into crisis, ignoring criticism from the West, which says the legislation is authoritarian and Russian-inspired.
The vote to ignore the objections of Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, whose powers are mostly ceremonial, sets the stage for the speaker of parliament to sign the bill into law in the coming days.
Al Jazeera reports that the legislature, controlled by the governing Georgian Dream party, dismissed on May 28 President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto of the legislation that she and other critics have said will restrict media freedom and obstruct Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union.
The president now has five days to endorse the bill. If she doesn’t do so, the parliament speaker would be able to sign it into law.
Recall, Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed the “foreign agents” bill, which has sparked unprecedented protests in the country and warnings from Brussels that the measure would undermine Tbilisi’s European Union aspirations, on May18. She wrote on May 18 on her X (Twitter) page “Today, I vetoed the Russian law. This law, in its essence and spirit, is fundamentally Russian, contradicting our constitution and all European standards. It thus represents an obstacle to our European path.”
As it had been reporter earlier, Georgia's parliament on May 1 approved the second reading of a bill on "foreign agents" that has been criticized as Kremlin-inspired, as police fired tear gas and stun grenades to clear a large crowd of protesters opposed to the draft law. Lawmakers reportedly voted 83 to 23 to adopt the bill in a second reading after a heated debate that included the expulsion of four opposition deputies and a fight between members representing opposition and majority parties.
The bill reportedly requires non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media outlets with more than 20 percent of their funding coming from outside Georgia to register as bodies “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”.
If they refuse to do so and to disclose sensitive information about foreign funding, they will meet a fine of 25,000 lari (US$9,360), followed by additional fines of 20,000 lari (US$7,490) for each month of non-compliance thereafter.
