Trans-Atlantic Foreign Affairs Committee Chairs Slam Agent’s Law, Pledge Support to NGOs, Media

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a joint statement with 15 European colleagues, including the EU and the United Kingdom, in which they condemned the “alarming and repressive step” taken by the Parliament of Georgia by adopting the foreign agent’s law.

The strongly-worded statement reads that “a parliament’s role is to reflect the will of its people, and Georgians have unequivocally rejected this Kremlin-inspired law as incompatible with their identity.” Referring directly to the efforts of several leading Georgian CSOs, such as Transparency International – Georgia, ISFED, and GYLA, which “are playing pivotal roles in Georgia’s path towards Euro-Atlantic integration,” the signatories pledge that “the United States and Europe will continue to support them as their leadership and vision for Georgia exemplify true patriotism, in stark contrast to the 84 members of Parliament who aligned themselves with Russia in yesterday’s vote.”

The signatories pledge never to abandon the Georgian people and say they won’t “hesitate to hold accountable those responsible for enacting this Russian-style law and for the brutal targeting of nonviolent demonstrators, including by Bidzina Ivanishvili and his cronies.

“To the Georgian people, we declare: You are not alone,” the statement concludes.

The statement is made on behalf of the chairs of foreign affairs committees in the parliaments of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the European Union, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. 

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