The Foreign Relations and the Defense and Security Committees at the joint sitting discussed the Draft Law on Registration of Foreign Agents, and the Draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence initiated by the group of MPs.

According to one of the authors, Guram Macharashvili, the Draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence determines the concept of the foreign agent and its registration.

“For the prevention of speculations, we have declared that both Drafts should be adopted with the I reading; after the hereof statement, we declared our intention to submit the Drafts to the Venice Commission and hold the II reading only after we have the Venice Commission opinion, by which we practically ensured the accomplishment of the speculations that any of these Drafts are allegedly Russian”, - he stated.

The Chair of the Agrarian Issues Committee, Nino Tsilosani offered to retitle the Draft since she as well feels uncomfortable and concerned about the “foreign influence agent”.

“Let me offer and appeal to you to discuss the title and adopt it with the reservation that the Draft will be retitled in the manner to prevent various organizations operating bona fide in this sphere be discredited”, - she proposed.

The Committees approved the Drafts and submitted them to the Legal Issues Committee for consideration.

At the end of the meeting, the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, Nikoloz Samkharadze noted that the Draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence is being delegated to the Legal Committee with the condition that the terms will be revised and the respective discussions will be held.