On December 29, 2022 The People’s Power a populist faction movement affiliated with the ruling party, Georgian Dream, presented the draft law which will envisage creating a registry for “agents of foreign influence”. According to the idea, “the definition of an agent of foreign influence will be introduced“, and “the direct involvement of the state in a number of processes that envisage the privileging of individuals or legal entities with foreign funding will be ensured.” On February 14, 2023 the movement initiated a bill on the activities of foreign-funded organizations and are going to register it officially in parliament. Georgian Dream has been in agreement with this position. The draft law might be successfully adopted by the Georgian Parliament in the near future, which would put CSOs in a vulnerable position.
If the Georgian Parliament adopts the law on agents of foreign influence, it will mark a decisive turn away from Georgia’s European integration and should negatively impact perspective for future European financial aid. In the frameworks of Expert Evaluation, we are asking for answers to the established Georgian and international experts if they agree or disagree to that notion. In the same survey experts provide the evaluation of their confidence level from 1 to 3 points and explain their answer within 150 words maximum.[1]
