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• Charles Michel meets Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili

  President of the European Council Charles Michel met today with Georgian President Salome Zarubishvili in Brussels. 

  “Reaffirmed EU’s commitment to Georgia’s European path to President Zourabichvili and welcomed her role in advancing Georgia’s people aspirations,” Charles Michel wrote  on Twitter.

  He added that the decision of the European Council to grant a European perspective to Georgia is “a historic opportunity not to be missed”.

  “Progress on reforms remains crucial,” said Charles Michel.

  Find out more

  Press release

• Georgian draft law on de-oligarchisation: Supporting the goal of limiting excessive influence of oligarchs, Venice Commission calls for systemic reforms

  Strasbourg, 14.03.2023 – In its interim opinion on the draft law of Georgia on de-oligarchisation published today, the Council of Europe’s body of constitutional experts, the Venice Commission, called on the Georgian authorities to adopt systemic reforms rather than targeting specific individuals, in order to achieve “de-oligarchisation”.

  “Oligarchisation” is the result of a combination of non-transparent exercise of political power without a political mandate, influence on parliaments, governments, political parties, judiciary and law enforcement bodies; ownership or influence on the media; decisive, if not monopolistic, influence on a number of areas, such as energy, mining, oil and gas, metallurgy, real estate. Eliminating such excessive influence of vested interests in economic, political and public life is a novel and very complex issue.

  The Venice Commission noted that while Ukraine was the first country to adopt specific de-oligarchisation legislation, the commitment to eliminate the excessive influence of vested interests in economic, political and public life was also the object of a specific European Commission recommendation to Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. Georgia has since prepared a draft law which is very closely modelled on Ukrainian Law. Each country, however, presents specificities.

  The Venice Commission supported the goal of eliminating or at least limiting the influence of oligarchs in political, economic and public life. It highlighted, however, that the choice of the means to achieve such a legitimate goal is of decisive importance if the system is to be effective while respecting democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights. Any such measures should be commensurate to the goal pursued of achieving a level playing field for all actors in society.

  The Commission stressed that de-oligarchisation should be ensured through a systemic approach, which has a preventative effect and targets numerous fields, such as legislation relating to media, anti-monopoly, political parties, elections, taxation, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering, etc.

  The Georgian draft law instead focuses on a so-called “personal” (punitive) approach, seeking to identify so-called “oligarchs” through specific criteria, such as wealth and media ownership, to publicly label them as “oligarchs” and to subject them to series of blanket limitations that include exclusion from the financing of political parties or activities, exclusion from privatisations of public property, etc. This approach, in the opinion of the Venice Commission, carries high risks of human rights violations and arbitrary application, potentially harming political pluralism. At the very least, the Commission recommended transferring the power to designate a person as an “oligarch” to another body than the Government, removing the broad discretion of the Government in interpreting and applying these criteria and providing strong guarantees for human rights, due process and effective remedies.

  The Venice Commission has prepared the current opinion as an interim one, with a view of pursuing its analysis of possible solutions to this matter and taking into account further legislative developments when they are available.

• Address by the President

  This briefing was not scheduled. Today, anyway, I wasn't going to do anything, and when I heard that the rally was going to be held here, it was my decision and my desire to join the people with whom I shared many battles (I'm not talking here about electoral battles) in those dark days when we fought together against the criminal and unfair regime of Misha Saakashvili. I came out there for these people, not for some protesters, I don't know who, to show up in the palace, that's not the right format, and I'm sure that wasn't the intention of the people who spearheaded it.

  Those people whom I respect very much because of all this and our common past, have come to the palace many times and know that my door is open, everyone has the opportunity to ask for a meeting, and I’ve shown it recently that I meet everyone, and not only those with whom these battles I have shared, and I will continue to do so.

  Now I want to go back to what I wanted to say earlier and couldn't finish what I had to say, and I want to continue to say it through you, and for that, I want to thank you once again.

  First, let me say: I know that this demonstration was not only organized by those people, but it was accompanied by various message boxes that have been circulating these days. This was deliberately done in order to put pressure on the President from those people, from the party whose leaders were nowhere in 2007 (I say 2007, because this is the period when everything happened and everything was clear.)

  These people, who today threaten me with my career or in different ways and believe that they could threaten me, were not there then, and now they ask me about my morale and teach me how to fight against Saakashvili, who is already fallen.

  I wonder where these people have been since 2007. I will tell you, one was in Misha's staff and stayed there for a long time. Another one was in "Cartu Bank", well-paid. Others were in other positions and I don't want to make it personal now, but they were nowhere so how can they ask about my morals? What can they teach me, I wonder?! The same goes for that quartet that walks around saying stuff.

  It is very clear that here, there is some kind of joint game between different forces, which are supposedly very opposed. But in reality, who ‘pardoned’ Murusidze and Chinchaladze? Was it me? If so, when? I don't know, tell me! I think that the very power that is teaching me wisdom today, not only pardoned them, but placed them in such places, from which no one can remove them, and from which they also very effectively block our way to Europe.

  Who is this for? Why don't we ask this?! Before the rally comes to me (when I say coming - I'm talking about the rally, not about the people who are coming to meet, have been coming and I hope they will come here again.)

  What is the agreement between these two powers? On the one hand, bringing Misha. Why did some of them advised, urged him to come down here, launch a revolution, claiming people would come out for him.

  On the other side, those who were playing with Georgian emotions and antagonizing him: ‘if you’re brave, come here. Don’t be lazy, come here.’

  Both were excited about Misha's arrival and we can see why. Because we have been living in this for a year already and more. A year later, we are completely stuck around Misha, in arguments, disputes, fights, there is no other topic, it is impossible to raise another topic, the country is sinking around this issue, and this suits both sides. 

  For one side, it is probably because it cannot see other plans, because it no longer has an answer to any of the questions that society should ask its government, and I don't know what I have to do with it, but it is unacceptable. Or they don't know me, maybe they don't know me, I don't know, they still haven’t learned who I was for so many years, but pressure on the institution (and not to mention a woman and the president) that is happening today is unacceptable. This bullying, (by the way, I don't know where are those NGO people who should express something about bullying), direct blackmail, threats, humiliation are unacceptable

  And here look, there’s a "Russian village" at my doorstep, and what does that mean? In no other country, in front of the president's palace, such a village, especially in this tense period, would be built, but there are different opinions and different tastes about it.

  Then they threaten me with “career”, as if I could kiss my career goodbye, as if I wanted some other career, they forget how old I am, but if anyone knows me in this country, they will also know that I left my career over there a long time ago, that I am only interested in this country, I am interested only in the European future of this country, which for some reason everyone is fighting against, no one can see that our society wants this and our society will continue to want it regardless of everything - here I am, here you are and we will go on this path, despite everyone's pressure and attempts to blackmail in different ways.

• MONEYVAL report on Georgia: improvements in the Financial Monitoring Service powers to disseminate information to law enforcement authorities, but other deficiencies remain

  Georgia has improved its measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing; it has demonstrated good progress and has been upgraded from “partially compliant” to “largely compliant” with the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) Recommendation 29, related to Financial Intelligence Units, concludes the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body MONEYVAL in a follow-up report released today.

  By enhancing the powers of the Financial Monitoring Service (Financial Intelligence Unit of Georgia) to disseminate information and results of analyses upon request and without a court order to all law enforcement authorities, Georgia has addressed a significant shortcoming earlier identified. Only minor shortcomings remain regarding a lack of explicit reference to require the Financial Monitoring Service to conduct operational and strategic analysis and the scope of the money laundering definition.

  The report also examines a range of legislative, regulatory, and institutional measures, such as introducing a central electronic reporting for online casinos, requiring a clean criminal record for beneficial owners of casinos, making sanctions for AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) breaches applicable to casinos, as well introducing a broad regulatory framework for the investment fund sector. However, these measures were not sufficient to upgrade the ratings of Recommendations 22, 28 or 35, as moderate deficiencies in relation to the scope of covered designated non-financial businesses and professions and the sanctioning regimes remain.

  Overall, Georgia has achieved full compliance with six of the 40 FATF recommendations constituting the international AML/CFT standard and retains minor deficiencies in the implementation of 22 recommendations where it has been found “largely compliant”. Eleven recommendations remain “partially compliant” and one of them has a “non-compliant” rating (the recommendation requiring that countries review their laws and regulations to ensure that non-profit organisations cannot be abused for the financing of terrorism).

  Consequently, Georgia is expected to report back to MONEYVAL on further progress to strengthen its implementation of AML/CFT measures in one year’s time.

  • Link to the report
• First report on implementation of Istanbul Convention by Georgia welcomes steps on legislation, calls for more services for victims and dissuasive sanctions for perpetrators

  Strasbourg, 22.11.2022 – The Council of Europe’s monitoring body GREVIO in its first report on Georgia released today welcomed the many steps taken by the Georgian authorities to align its laws, policies and institutional framework with the standards of the Istanbul Convention. However, further legal amendments are needed, more domestic violence shelters and sexual violence crisis referral centres should be established across the country, bureaucratic obstacles related to obtaining victim status should be addressed, and steps must be urgently taken to increase women’s equal status in the Georgian society where patriarchal attitudes still prevail. The comments of the Georgian government were equally published.

  The adoption of the National Action Plan on Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and Protection of Victims 2018-2020, accompanied by policies, constituted a very important step in aligning Georgia’s obligations with its commitments under the convention. Besides, the Law on Domestic Violence has been amended to address all forms of violence and contains such welcome elements as the provision of special leave for victims of violence for the duration of their stay at a shelter/crisis centre, as well as the formal assignment of victim status to those witnessing domestic violence, notably children. The offence of domestic violence as well as new crimes such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation, stalking and forced sterilisation have been introduced into the Criminal Code. Significant changes were made to legislation in 2019 in terms of prohibiting sexual harassment, and much effort has been made to raise awareness of the different forms of violence against women. However, the definition of rape and the other offences of sexual violence in the Georgian Criminal Code still needs to be amended, in order to fully incorporate the notion of the lack of freely given consent, as required by the Istanbul Convention.

  Victims have no access to fully established rape crisis and/or sexual violence referral centres that would be adequately geographically distributed all over Georgia. Besides, there are still very few services for women and girls at risk of or subjected to forced marriage, and administrative requirements such as obtaining formal victim status place barriers on women’s access to domestic violence shelters. GREVIO also urges the authorities to improve the access to support services and protection mechanisms to women exposed to the risk of intersectional discrimination, such as those from national and/or ethnic minorities, living in rural areas, women with disabilities and refugees, lesbian, bisexual or transgender women and older women. Children who witness violence often remain invisible to the system. Besides, financial resources allocated to state and NGO actors should be augmented, and the involvement of the latter in anti-violence law and policy development increased. 

  The criminal justice mechanisms for combating sexual violence face serious shortcomings: investigations and prosecutions lack in promptness, effectiveness, and sensitivity. The report calls for immediate measures to guarantee a quick and adequate response, in particular in cases of rape and sexual violence. The factors that contribute to the very high threshold for proving rape in court should be identified and addressed, and re-traumatisation of victims avoided all along the way. Urgent action should also be taken to ensure that criminal penalties imposed are dissuasive and commensurate with the gravity of the offence, and that courts take into account all incidents of domestic violence when deciding on custody or visitation rights.

  Besides, GREVIO urges the authorities to review the process of issuance of emergency barring orders by the police, to identify and address reasons for the high proportion of orders annulled by the courts (around 60% in 2018-2021), as well as to monitor compliance with such orders. Similarly, the causes of the high number of violations of restraining and protection orders should be identified, and adequate sanctions applied in cases of breaches of such orders. GREVIO notes with great concern that while in 2018 the number of investigations initiated for violations of restraining orders was 60 and in 2019 the number went up to 516, no information has been provided concerning the sanctions imposed.

  In its report, GREVIO also urges the Georgian authorities to ensure that women victims of violence who are in need of protection, regardless of their status or residence, shall not be returned under any circumstances to any country where their life would be at risk or where they might be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

  Finally, GREVIO points out that patriarchal attitudes, and stereotypes about gender roles and acceptable behaviour are still prevalent in Georgian society. Persistent gender stereotypes and their peddling by the media should be addressed, and efforts to increase women’s equal status in society, public discourse and the media must be urgently undertaken.

  GREVIO and Georgia