The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze declares, that NGOs were engaged in the failure of strategic economic projects, noting that it resulted in harming Georgia's energy independence.
"Next topic that was of our concern and which we openly shared with our partners was the engagement of individual NGOs in the failing of strategic economic projects, which resulted in harming our energy independence for instance. Concrete NGOs were engaged in this as well. Here again, I think that had the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence existed, NGOs would have found it very difficult to roughly obstruct the interests of our energy independence and would have taken a better care of their donors", - Irakli Kobakhidze said.
The Georgian Parliament on Wednesday approved the first reading of the bill on the transparency of foreign influence that has sparked public protests and criticism by the country’s foreign partners.
The draft law was supported by 83 MPs in the 150-member lawmaking body.
The amendments provide for the registration of non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entities and media as “the organizations pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if a certain amount of their income, over 20 per cent, is received from abroad.
