EU halts €120m in aid to Georgia over “democratic backsliding”
- 12 October, 13:24
The European Union has withheld €121 million in EU funding to Georgia, citing the South Caucasus country’s “democratic backsliding”.
The money was “withheld/reallocated in June 2024 in reaction to backsliding on democratic standards, in particular following the adoption of the [foreign agent law], targeting Georgian civil society and media,” the European Commission’s Directorate-General for EU Neighbourhood and Enlargement announced on a Facebook post on Tuesday.
The “foreign agent law” that the EU official referred to, labels as a foreign agent any individual or an entity that receives around twenty percent of their funding from a foreign country and subjects them to a government monitoring every six months. Organizations refusing to comply are subject to hefty fines.
The controversial law was reintroduced by the ruling Georgia Dream party in April and caused large-scale protests in Georgia. The law that is believed to mirror a similar law passed by the Kremlin, has caused the souring of Tbilisi’s ties with its Western partners, with the US and EU suspending funding for certain projects in the country.
The decision to suspend the €121 million funding to Georgia comes amid the European Parliament’s adoption of a resolution on “democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia” by a majority of votes. The resolution urges the European Commission to also review Georgia’s fulfillment of visa-free regime criteria and imposes individual and targeted sanctions on Bidzina Ivanishvili, a pro-Russian billionaire politician and founder of the ruling Georgia Dream party. EU’s proposal to impose visa restriction on Ivanishvili was followed by Putin’s new decree on Thursday to expand visa-free regime for Georgian citizens.
