The European Union Delegation to Georgia echoed the de-oligarchization bill, saying that a Venice Commission opinion should be requested and implemented before its adoption.
“De-oligarchisation draft law passed second reading. We reiterate our strong suggestion: a Venice Commission opinion should be requested and implemented before its adoption”, the Delegation posted on the official Facebook page.
The Georgian parliament passed the de-oligarchization bill in its second reading.
According to the draft law, an oligarch is someone with substantial financial and political weight in public life who meets at least three of the four criteria. The criteria are political engagement, considerable media influence, being the ultimate beneficiary of an enterprise with a dominant market position, and possessing confirmed assets that exceed one million times the subsistence minimum for an able-bodied individual as of January 1 of the relevant year.
The government of Georgia decides who is considered an oligarch and maintains an appropriate registry. A person on the said register is prohibited from making donations from his funds, performing work, providing goods, services, or cash in support of political parties, making donations to the candidates’ election funds (except their own election funds), financing political parties during the election process, and being a buyer in the process of privatizing large-scale facilities.
