Vice-President of the European Commission: I advised Ilia Darchiashvili to review our directive - the EU plans to do this without stigmatizing NGOs and labeling them as foreign agents
Georgia should pay more attention to the protection of minorities, such as LGBTQ people, and not open the door to discrimination or rude rhetoric against these people, said the European Commissioner for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová, commenting on the meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia in Brussels.
"I don't think it was a surprise for him to say again that the European Commission insists on a strong judiciary, a prosecution system that can investigate and prosecute organized crime, anti-corruption schemes, etc. I think he was not surprised to hear from me once again that this is the main thing that we focus on. We also discussed issues related to the NGO Transparency Law and the situation of LGBTQ persons and the planned constitutional amendment. It is my duty to tell the ministers in such situations that doing such things may be a departure from the principles of the European Union. Georgia should pay more attention to the protection of minorities, such as LGBTQ people, and not open the door to discrimination or harsh rhetoric against these people," said the European Commissioner.
According to her, regarding the draft law on transparency, she advised the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia to review the EU directive.
"I advised the Minister to review our Defense of Democracy Directive, which also aims to increase the transparency of foreign funding, but I believe the EU plans to do this without stigmatizing and labeling NGOs as foreign agents. The main message of our directive is that we need to know who is getting what law for whose money. The difference between European and Georgian legislation is that we do not define entities such as NGOs. We are talking about entities operating in the European single market, and we want to know contracts with third country governments, not just money coming in from outside. This is a big difference," said Jourová.
As a reminder, an informal session of the General Affairs Council of the European Union (GAC) is being held in Brussels, in which the ministers of foreign and European affairs of the EU member and candidate countries are participating, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Ilia Darchiashvili.
