Georgian Parliament official accuses Eurocrats of brazenly seeking to bypass Georgian law to fund “agents”

Rati Ionatamishvili, the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights Protection and Civil Integration, on Friday said that any open attempts by foreign officials to circumvent Georgian law in order to finance affiliated actors would be met with a firm and democratic response from society.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Ionatamishvili highlighted the public nature and audacity of the Eurocrat’s statement, framing it as an explicit effort to channel funds to “their own agents” in defiance of Georgian regulations.

“For any anti-democratic action, we will have a democratic response, and that response will be very strong and fair. When a specific Eurocrat openly and brazenly says in public that they are looking for ways to bypass the law in order to finance their own agents, this will not go unnoticed by our society”, he said.

The official argued that such financing was not aimed at genuine democratic development but at subverting the country’s independence, progress, and statehood.

“Such funding is not intended to support the development of democracy; on the contrary, its purpose is to undermine the country’s statehood and progress. We will not allow anyone the opportunity to carry out this objective”, he noted.

He emphasised that it was in the public interest for citizens to have full and transparent information about externally funded organisations operating in Georgia, including the sources of their funding.

“It is in the interest of society to have exhaustive information about the funding of all such organizations – where it comes from, how it is obtained, and where it is spent. No one will be able to achieve anything in our country through such dark activities, and the sooner they realise this, the better it will be for them”, Ionatamishvili concluded.

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday intensified his criticism of foreign-funded non-governmental organisations, comparing their Estonian-registered offices to the flimsy shelters found in the fairy tale The Three Little Pigs.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Papuashvili presented what he described as photo evidence and registration documents showing that several Georgian non-governmental and media organisations were registered at the same address in Estonia, with the address corresponding to a dilapidated, partially ruined building located next to a railway line, which he said raises questions about the credibility of the organisations allegedly registered there.