“The day before yesterday, the Venice Commission issued its opinion on the draft law on de-oligarchization. According to the Venice Commission, this draft law should not be adopted because there are serious risks,” said EU Ambassador to Georgia Pawel Herczynski.

According to Ambassador Herczynski, he supports the recommendations of the Venice Commission and the bill on de-oligarchization is among the EC’s 12 priorities.

“We, as the European Commission support all recommendations of the Venice Commission. The Venice Commission is the standard-setter when it comes to such legislation. So, we would call for a systemic approach instead of adopting a specific law. De-oligarchization is one of the 12 priorities. This is priority number five. We have said that this is a very important priority and we expect the Georgian government to move forward on de-oligarchization. We have never said what is the right approach. We said what needs to be done but not how. It was the decision of Georgians to proceed with the draft law.

Now, we know that according to the Venice Commission, this is not the right approach. What the Venice Commission suggests is a systemic approach and this is why as also feel that a systemic approach is the right one, which means a lot of things: reform of the judiciary, more efforts on anti-corruption, more transparency and accountability, which means a stronger state. And this is what we are willing to work with our Georgian counterparts in order to achieve, and you can count on our very strong support,” he said.

The Venice Commission, an Advisory Board of the Council of Europe, adopted the final Opinion on Georgia’s de-oligarchization bill at its 135th Plenary Session held on 9-10 June.

“Georgia has chosen to tackle the destructive influence of oligarchisation through a ‘personal approach’ instead of pursuing a multi-sectoral, ‘systemic’ approach in its prepared draft law on de-oligarchisation,” reads the final Opinion.