“NGOs are a political tool for interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country; therefore, financial issues related to NGOs must be transparent from beginning to end, which is ensured here,” Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists in response to statements by former US State Department official Mike Benz.

According to Kobakhidze, the Georgian government was previously criticized for this issue, which European countries are now actively discussing.

“Very interesting processes have begun. NGOs, in general, are a political tool for interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country. Therefore, financial issues related to NGOs should be transparent from beginning to end, which is ensured with us, and it is important to ensure this across the European Union as well. For this, NGOs were created as a phenomenon, and it is important to properly regulate all of this. No funds should come into the country from outside to finance politics. Therefore, we made an important decision on the financing of NGOs at the right time. This is a correct reference to what we were criticized for, and European countries are now actively discussing this in the European Union. The existence of such legislation is also important for the European Union. No one should interfere in someone else’s political life,” the Prime Minister noted.

Former senior U.S. State Department official Mike Benz stated in an interview with former British Prime Minister Liz Truss that the United States and the EU accused Georgia and Hungary of “Russian law” solely because these countries enacted legislation on transparency of funding.

Benz discussed the issue of freedom of speech in Europe, emphasising that the U.S. State Department is now backing the Free Speech Initiative across the continent.
He highlighted that freedom of speech has been an unwavering cornerstone in Europe for a century; yet in the past ten years, financial support has increasingly facilitated censorship rather than safeguarding authentic free expression.