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In a Facebook post on Thursday, Kobakhidze said that the unnamed commissioner warned him during a recent phone call that the West would take “a number of measures” against him if his government pressed ahead with a law requiring foreign NGOs in Georgia to disclose their funding.
“While listing these measures, he mentioned: ‘you see what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful’,” he wrote.
Fico was shot multiple times as he met with supporters outside a government meeting in the town of Handlova on May 15. He was rushed to hospital, underwent emergency surgery, and is currently recuperating from his injuries. His would-be assassin – a 71-year-old poet who allegedly disagreed with Fico’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine – has been charged with attempted murder.
Georgia’s parliament passed the ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence Act’ last week. The law requires NGOs, media outlets, and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities “promoting the interests of a foreign power” and disclose their donors.
While the act has been vetoed by Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, parliament is expected to override the veto.
Despite similar yet more stringent foreign influence laws existing in the US, UK, and other Western nations, Georgia’s foreign agent law has been strongly condemned by US and EU officials, with Washington considering unspecified “actions” against Tbilisi and multiple EU members weighing sanctions, according to media reports.
“We have long been accustomed to this kind of insulting blackmail,” Kobakhidze wrote. “The parallel drawn with the attempted assassination of Robert Fico reminds us that in the form of the Global War Party, we are dealing with an extremely dangerous force that will do anything to bring chaos to Georgia.”
In an interview with Georgia’s Channel 1 on Wednesday, Kobakhidze argued that without a transparency law, foreign-funded NGOs operating in the country could easily foment a revolution akin to the US-backed ‘Maidan’ coup in Ukraine in 2014. “We want transparency… we don’t want to leave muddy water in this country, because a ‘Georgian Maidan’ could lead our country to very serious consequences, to its ‘Ukrainization’. We cannot agree with this,” he said.
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ER: Readers might be interested in this early 2023 report where EU commissioner Oliver Varhelyi has a style of voicing his opinions. And then claiming his remarks were ‘taken out of context’. Maybe we should trust his advice to the Georgian PM. See —
Outrage and resignation calls as Enlargement Commissioner is caught on hot mic calling MEPs ‘idiots’
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EU official explains ‘death threats’ against Georgian PM
Oliver Varhelyi has claimed that his reference to the assassination attempt in Slovakia was “misunderstood”
RT
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi has come forward as the official who allegedly threatened Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze with assassination, but said his comments had been taken out of context.
In a social media post on Thursday, Kobakhidze described a recent phone call with an unnamed EU commissioner who reportedly told him, “you see what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful.”
Slovakian PM Robert Fico survived an assassination attempt by an opposition activist last week. The EU has blamed “political polarization” in the country for the incident, rather than the criticism of Fico coming from Brussels.
“I would like to express my very sincere regret that a certain part of my phone conversation was taken out of context,” Varhelyi said in a statement released on Thursday, addressing Kobakhidze’s words.
According to Varhelyi, his words were “not just fully taken out of context” but “also presented to the public in a way which could give rise to a complete misinterpretation of the originally intended aim of my phone call.”
Varhelyi had phoned Kobakhidze to urge him to abandon the Transparency of Foreign Influence Act, passed by Georgia’s parliament last week. He argued that this would “inflame further the already fragile situation” in the country and “could lead to further polarization and to possible uncontrolled situations on the streets of Tbilisi.”
“In this regard, the latest tragic event in Slovakia was made as an example and as a reference to where such [a] high level of polarization can lead in a society even in Europe,” Varhelyi wrote.
Georgia’s government has tried to rein in thousands of non-governmental organizations, media outlets, and activists by proposing that anyone who receives 20% or more in funding from abroad would need to register and disclose their donors. Critics have denounced the law as “Russian,” ignoring the far more draconian US law on foreign agents adopted in the 1930s.
Kobakhidze has described US and EU pressure to drop the law as “insulting blackmail.” Earlier this week, he told the state broadcaster that if unchecked, foreign-funded NGOs could easily foment a color revolution in Tbilisi along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 coup.
“We don’t want to leave muddy water in this country, because a ‘Georgian Maidan’ could lead our country to very serious consequences, to its ‘Ukrainization,’” he said.
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Featured image source, EU commissioner:
Featured image, Georgian PM Irakli Kobakhidze: AFP / Getty
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