The Georgian President’s Administration on Monday echoed the People’s Power-tabled draft law on foreign agents, stressing it “cannot support such law and persecution of new agents.”

According to the statement, the draft law was registered in the parliamentary bureau at the very time when the delegation of the U.S. senators is visiting the country. “This cannot be a coincidence. Instead of strengthening Georgia’s European path, a force has been set in action to pick another path as the Georgian interest.”

“Whereas the primary evaluation of the implementation of the European Commission’s 12 recommendations is being prepared, and the forthcoming 24 February makes the issue of the European future more topical for the three nations of the Associated Trio, one of the political groups this time chooses to initiate the law that brings us closer to the flawed Russian model rather than the European model,” the statement reads.

Last week, the People’s Power movement initiated the draft law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence” to ensure “full transparency of foreign funding of organizations so that Georgian citizens know who is behind the activities of this or that group.”