Georgia approves 'foreign agents' bill despite mass protests: Back to Russia's orbit? • FRANCE 24

Another showdown in the country that launched the so-called coloured revolutions. Georgia’s parliament has shrugged off some of the biggest protests in its post-Soviet history by approving a “foreign agents” bill that mirrors legislation in neighbouring Russia. The opposition argues it is the way for the government to curb media freedom and dissent in a country which only recently graduated to EU candidate status.

Is Tbilisi returning to Russia’s orbit? Or did that already happen when oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgia Dream party won a supermajority back in 2020? That supermajority is now slated to override a presidential veto on what the opposition calls the “Russian law”. Then what? 

Ahead of elections later this year, we take a look at what lessons other former Soviet states, like Armenia, Kazakhstan and of course Ukraine - which just 10 years ago was still evenly split between pro-Moscow and pro-EU citizens – can draw from the developments.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Guillaume Gougeon and Imen Mellaz. 
#Georgia #Russia #EU

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