Georgia's president says she will veto the final reading of the law on foreign agents
President Salome Zurabishvili warned that Georgia's survival as a state is in danger after parliament approved a contentious "foreign agent" law despite weeks of popular protests and warnings from the West that the move endangers Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, DW reports.
Speaking at a news conference in Tbilisi with the visiting foreign ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Iceland on May 15, Zurabishvili reiterated she would veto the legislation approved a day earlier, as the government "did not listen to the voice of its people, nor to the advice of its friends, nor to anyone's warning, and went its own way."
"The issue of Georgia's survival is at stake today," she said.
"I told our friends about our plans for the future, about what should be a European platform that I have been working on for several weeks now and which I will officially present to our people," Zurabishvili said, adding that her platform is meant to mobilize Georgians ahead of elections later this year.
"Our immediate plan is mobilization for elections, a peaceful path on which we will all undoubtedly win together, in order to bring our motherland onto a peaceful and European path," she said.
The law has been condemned by the United States, the European Union, and rights watchdogs for emulating a similar piece of Russian legislation used by President Vladimir Putin to crush dissent and stifle independent institutions.
A NATO spokesperson on May 15 called the legislation "a step in the wrong direction" that takes Georgia "further away from European and Euro-Atlantic integration."
Zurabishvili, who is at odds with the ruling Georgian Dream party that pushed the legislation through parliament, has 10 days to exercise her veto powers. However, the dominant position of Georgian Dream and its partners in parliament is strong enough to override a presidential veto.
Zurabishvili spoke shortly after thousands of Georgian demonstrators continued their protest into the early hours of May 15 in Tbilisi against the bill.
