Georgia Set to Approve Controversial Foreign Agents Bill

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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Georgia’s looming foreign agents law, Russia’s new defense minister, and elections in Lithuania and Catalonia.

Foreign Influence

The Georgian Parliament’s legal committee on Monday approved the third and final reading of a controversial foreign agents bill that has brought tens of thousands of Georgians to the streets in recent months to protest what they see as a Russian-style effort to chill free speech. Lawmakers took only 67 seconds to review and greenlight the legislation. Parliament is expected to pass the bill on Tuesday, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has promised to back it. Opposition members, who have recently been denied access to Tbilisi’s main government building, did not attend Monday’s vote.

Under the proposed legislation, civil society organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad must register as “agents of foreign influence.” In April, the ruling Georgian Dream party introduced the bill, which is modeled after a Russian foreign agents law that President Vladimir Putin enacted in 2012 and has since used to crush dissent. Georgian Dream has long been accused of harboring pro-Kremlin sympathies; the party’s founder, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, made his billion-dollar fortune in the Soviet Union.

Georgian Dream has “made a decision to go the path of one-party rule, of shutting down basically all checks and balances on executive power, and this Russian law is the last instrument that they need to put in place,” Ian Kelly, a former U.S. ambassador to Georgia, told FP’s Amy Mackinnon.

The ruling party first proposed a similar foreign agents bill last February but withdrew the text over widespread protests. Russia denies having a state-backed influence campaign in Tbilisi and says outsiders are using the bill to “provoke anti-Russian sentiments.” Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is not a member of Georgian Dream, has vowed to veto the legislation, but Tbilisi’s Moscow-friendly party controls Parliament and will likely overturn her efforts.

Mass demonstrations have erupted in the capital in response to the proposed law, marking some of the largest rallies in Georgia since it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Around 50,000 people protested the bill’s looming passing on Saturday, with at least 20 people, including two U.S. citizens and a Russian national, reportedly arrested on Monday morning. Georgia’s Special Investigation Service, which examines police brutality allegations, opened a case on Monday into claims that Georgian security used excessive force against demonstrators. Transparency International Georgia has also recorded incidents of activists and journalists receiving threatening phone calls and government critics being attacked.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote on X last Friday that Washington is “deeply alarmed about democratic backsliding in Georgia.” And European Union officials have expressed concern that the bill’s passage could be a significant setback for Tbilisi’s membership bid. Georgia was granted EU candidate status last December, and local polling shows that around 80 percent of Georgians support joining the bloc rather than shifting into Moscow’s orbit.

Today’s Most Read

The World This Week

Tuesday, May 14: South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul concludes a two-day visit to China.

Denmark kicks off the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.

Wednesday, May 15: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts Swiss President Viola Amherd.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong steps down.

Thursday, May 16: Bahrain hosts the League of Arab States summit.

NATO defense chiefs meet in Brussels.

Friday, May 17: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino.

Latvia hosts the Council of Europe’s foreign ministers’ meeting.

Scholz hosts Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

Saturday, May 18: Peru hosts a two-day meeting of trade ministers with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

Sunday, May 19: The Dominican Republic holds a general election.

Monday, May 20: Lai Ching-te is sworn in as Taiwan’s new president.

What We’re Following

New defense chief. The Kremlin announced on Sunday that Putin has replaced Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, an economist with little military experience. Shoigu became defense chief in 2012 and has long been considered one of Putin’s closest allies during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His removal follows a series of major Russian military advances and could signal changing priorities in the Kremlin as Putin seeks to bolster Russia’s war economy.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov appeared to downplay the political shuffle on Sunday, leaving some experts to suspect party infighting, especially after one of Shoigu’s staff members was arrested on corruption charges last month. Shoigu has also been accused of being out of touch with the reality on the front lines, leading the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, then-head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, to accuse the Defense Ministry of bureaucratic incompetence before attempting a coup last June.

Wins for the status quo. Incumbent President Gitanas Nauseda won the first round of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday with 44 percent of the vote. Since he did not secure a simple majority, Nauseda must face Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte in a runoff on May 26. Nauseda has advocated for rapprochement with China and stronger Western sanctions on Moscow and has opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Also on Sunday, Catalonia’s Socialists won 42 out of 135 seats in regional parliamentary elections—breaking the absolute majority that the region’s pro-independence coalition has had for more than a decade. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will likely see the vote as having validated his controversial efforts to normalize ties with the region, including announcing pardons in 2021 for some people convicted over their involvement in Catalonia’s 2017 separatist bid.

Israel’s multifront offensive. Egypt, a key mediator in the Israel-Hamas war, announced on Monday that it will back South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice “in light of the escalating severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.” The decision is in response to Israel’s ongoing offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which foreign leaders and humanitarian activists have condemned, as well as a renewed push into northern Gaza to recapture areas where Israel says Hamas has returned after being ousted in the initial military offensive.

Rafah once sheltered around 1.4 million Palestinians who had fled fighting elsewhere in the territory. As of Monday, though, roughly 360,000 people have evacuated the city to escape bombardments. United Nations agencies have reported that they will likely run out of food aid for southern Gaza in the near future—worsening a crisis already reaching famine levels. And on Monday, the United Nations reported the first death of a U.N. foreign aid worker since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Odds and Ends

One, two, three, four—Germany is declaring a thumb war. More than 150 men flexed their muscles on Sunday in Bavaria’s national finger-wrestling competition. For each round, two contestants hook one finger—usually the middle finger—through opposite sides of a small leather loop and try to pull their opponent across a table. Dislocated digits are par for the course—as are beer, German sausages, and live Bavarian music.