Georgia’s parliament has passed the third and final reading of a controversial bill on “foreign agents” after weeks of protests against the measure and warnings from Brussels that its passage could harm the country’s bid to join the European Union.
There were scuffles between lawmakers in parliament on Tuesday before parliament members voted 84 to 30 to pass the bill, clearing a major hurdle on its way to becoming law.
The draft now goes to President Salome Zourabichvili, who has said she will veto it, but her decision can be overridden by another vote in parliament, controlled by the governing party and its allies.
The governing party’s push for the legislation has plunged the South Caucasian country into an extended political crisis and triggered mass protests.
The bill requires media and NGOs to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. It is seen by many as influenced by similar legislation in Russia that has been used to clamp down on the Kremlin’s political opponents.
Critics insist it poses a threat to democratic freedoms and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union.
The governing Georgian Dream party was forced by mass protests to withdraw the bill last year. The revised effort to push the legislation through has provoked huge demonstrations.
The government says that the bill is needed to promote transparency, combat “pseudo-liberal values” promoted by foreigners, and preserve Georgia’s sovereignty. Critics claim the governing party is seeking to pull the country away from its European aspirations and back towards Moscow.
About 1,000 protesters picketed the fortress-like parliament building as the debate got under way on Tuesday. A major police presence, with water cannon idling, was deployed nearby.
They eventually dispersed protesters, but demonstrators returned.
Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko reporting from Tbilisi, said the “frustration of these people was quite real”.
“The whole square … the whole area in front of parliament is filled with people once again in a show of determination,” Medvedenko said, adding that there were fewer people than earlier in the day.
Police said they would “tear gas anyone who doesn’t move away”, he said.
According to Medvedenko, protesters said they will continue coming out “tonight, tomorrow, probably the next day,” to make their voices heard.
Demonstrations have been running for weeks, peaking in the evening, when crowds numbering in the tens of thousands have mounted some of the biggest protests seen in Georgia since it regained independence from Moscow in 1991.
“This law is taking away my future,” 19-year-old protester Anano Plievi told AFP news agency outside parliament.
“I am angry, and proud of all these people at the same time. We are going to keep going towards Europe.”
The European Union, which gave Georgia candidate status in December, has repeatedly said that the bill will be a barrier to Tbilisi’s further integration with the bloc.
European Council President Charles Michel said on Tuesday that “if they want to join the EU, they have to respect the fundamental principles of the rule of law and the democratic principles”.
Georgian Dream insists that it still has ambitions of joining both the EU and NATO, even as it has adopted harsh anti-Western rhetoric in recent months.
Polls show Georgian public opinion is strongly supportive of EU integration, while many Georgians are hostile to Russia over Moscow’s support for the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France have all urged Georgia to withdraw the bill.
The Kremlin, which denies any role in inspiring the Georgian bill, said on Tuesday that the crisis was Tbilisi’s internal affair and accused outside powers of meddling.
“We see an unveiled intervention in the internal affairs of Georgia from the outside,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
“This is an internal matter of Georgia, we do not want to interfere there in any way.”
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