Tbilisi: Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili on Saturday vetoed the “foreign influence” bill largely symbolically, causing unprecedented opposition and warnings in Brussels that the move would undermine Tbilisi’s EU ambitions.
Lawmakers from the Georgian Dream Party voted against protesters this week against the former Soviet republic’s retreat from the West into Russia.
The move sparked a wave of protests unprecedented in the Black Sea country’s history.
“Today, I vetoed the Russian-language and anti-constitutional law,” Zurabishvili said in a televised statement about Saturday’s event.
The bill sparked a wave of protests unprecedented in the Black Sea country’s history. Critics say it is similar to Russian laws used to silence dissent.
According to opinion polls, more than 80 percent of the population wants to join the European Union and NATO and strongly opposes the Kremlin.
On Saturday, Brussels reiterated its warning that the move was incompatible with Georgia’s bid for EU membership, which is enshrined in the country’s constitution.
European Council President Charles Michel said in a tweet on Saturday that the president’s veto offered “an opportunity for further reflection.”
He urged MPs to “seize this opportunity” to keep Georgia on the EU track.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has indicated that he is ready to consider Zurabishvili’s proposal if his party vetoes it.
The bill requires non-governmental organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign countries to register as “foreign power interests.”
In an interview published in the French newspaper La Tribune Dimanche, former French diplomat Zurabishvili himself was invited by President Emmanuel Macron to come to Georgia to support his work.
“It’s not just Georgia, it’s a matter of ridding the Caucasus of the mentality of Soviet domination and Russian influence,” Zurabishvili told the newspaper.
