TBILISI, May 27. /TASS/. The Georgian parliament's legal affairs committee has approved a motion to override President Salome Zourabichvili's veto on the law on foreign agents. The meeting was streamed live on the legislature's website.
"The veto has been overturned in the committee. Accordingly, this subject is closed," Anri Ohanashvili, the head of the Legal Affairs Committee said after the voting.
The motion will now go to parliament for consideration at the plenary session on May 28. The committee’s meeting was held against the backdrop of heated debates between the opposition and legislators from the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party. The opponents reiterated their charges the authorities were blocking the country's European path by adopting the law, to which Ohanashvili responded that in case Georgia became a member of the EU this law would no longer be needed as the EU had a different legal space.
On May 14, the Georgian Parliament passed the law On the Transparency of Foreign Influence in the third reading, thus drawing sharp criticism from the European Union and threats to suspend the country's EU integration. US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said that the United States would impose sanctions on the Georgian authorities, if democracy was undermined in Georgia. The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili vetoed the law on May 18. The parliament’s speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, said the legislators were determined to override it.