“The European Union initiated the Directive on Transparency. And we took this transparency and made this as a basis for our law,” said Eka Sepashvili, MP and International Relations Secretary of the People’s Power party at the PACE Standing Committee.

According to Eka Sepashvili, the Georgian law On Transparency of Foreign Influence is “a little bit softer” than the EU Directive on Transparency.

“First of all, let me express my gratitude for your interest in the developments in Georgia, and your bother about my country. We really appreciate such kind of attitude towards my country. But let me explain some kinds of attitudes that are not totally true.

For instance, the Venice Commission has said there are two types of law: one is about lobbying, for instance, like FARA, and the second one, is about foreign influences. But let me remind you that whenever financial flows and financial resources come from abroad, not from inside the country, it always entails foreign influence, as well as we all may know – who pays the piper, calls the tune. This is the case that we try to have more transparency because Georgian people have a right to know who is behind these non-governmental organizations and what kind of activities they are financing.

Of course, there are some cases when such kinds of foreign financial flows go in, how to say, not in the right way to the political parties, and it is direct interference in the political situation because we have witnessed some cases in Georgia when NGOs are falsified. I mean political parties establish fake NGOs and they receive money from abroad and so we try to avoid such kind of development.

As a matter of fact, I have to convince you that in the first article of the law, it is written that this law does not restrict the activity of any NGOs and any media entities. So before we adopted this law, we made some public opinion polls and it appears that 81 percent is for transparency. Transparency is a key European value, and of course, we are trying to pursue our European path in regards to making this more transparent.

For instance, Ursula von der Leyen announced that foreign interference in domestic democracies became a problem. That’s why the European Union initiated the Directive on Transparency. And we took this transparency and made this as a basis for our law. So, our law is a little bit softer than the EU Directive on Transparency.

Moreover, MONEYVAL, which is one of the bodies of the Council of Europe, has recommended that Georgia increase transparency in the NGO sector, which is not so good in terms of information about their activities. As you may know, MONEYVAL is an organization that tries to avoid terrorism, money laundering and so on. In this regard, this law coincides with the European values.

As for the democratic development of Georgia and our European path, we are going towards our European path of course, and we are currently implementing an Association Agreement, which is fulfilled more than a half. Nowadays we are working on a global project, which is not only in Georgia’s interest but in the EU’s interest as well. I mean the EU’s energy security issues and the EU’s transport communication towards the east part of the planet and digital hubs,” she said.