(Brussels) The European Commissioner accused by the Georgian Prime Minister of “blackmail” and a “horrible threat”, in the run-up to a new vote concerning the law on “foreign influence” denounced by the EU, has regretted Thursday that his remarks were “taken out of context”.
“I sincerely regret that a certain part of my telephone conversation was taken out of context,” said the commissioner responsible for EU enlargement, Hungarian Oliver Varhelyi, in a statement.
According to Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidzé, a “European commissioner” whom he did not name, during a telephone call, listed the measures that the West could take if this law were definitively adopted, before launching, in reference to the Slovak Prime Minister who was recently the victim of an assassination attempt: “You saw what happened to [Robert] Fico, be very careful.”
In addition to this “horrible threat”, Mr. Kobakhidze, in a statement, also accused “high-ranking foreign politicians” of “blackmail against the Georgian people and their democratically elected government”.
“Fully aware of the very deep pro-European sentiment of Georgian society, I felt the need, during my telephone conversation, to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to the importance of not further inflaming an already fragile situation » by adopting this controversial law, explained the European Commissioner.
The latter then specifies having mentioned the “tragic” attack against Mr. Fico as an example of what a “high level of polarization can cause in a society, including in Europe”.
So, “I regret again that part of my telephone conversation was not only taken out of context, but also presented to the public in a way that could give rise to a complete misinterpretation of the original objective of my phone call,” underlined Mr. Varhelyi in this press release.
From this point of view, he also reiterates his call to the Georgian authorities not to promulgate this controversial law, deemed to contradict Georgia’s ambition to one day join the European Union.
Despite massive protests and warnings from the EU and Washington, the Georgian Parliament adopted a bill on “foreign influence” on May 14, which, according to its detractors, is modeled on a Russian law that has been used since 2012 to repress all opposition.
Pro-Western President Salome Zaroubishvili vetoed it, but the Georgian parliament, dominated by the prime minister’s Georgian Dream party, planned to override it in a vote expected on Tuesday.
The law requires any NGO or media outlet receiving more than 20% of its funding from abroad to register as an “organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power” and to submit to administrative oversight.
A former Soviet republic, Georgia has officially been a candidate for entry into the European Union since December 2023.