The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party has introduced a new legislative proposal titled the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which has been submitted to the Legal Affairs Committee for review. GD majority leader Mamuka Mdinaradze claimed that the bill is an "exact copy" of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), while a statement from the GD parliamentary office described the legislation as a "direct Georgian translation" of the U.S. law currently in force.

"With the introduction of this legislative initiative, any false narrative that was spread internally or externally regarding Georgian laws has come to an end," said GD Speaker Shalva Papuashvili. "Accordingly, any speculation that the Georgian Parliament will adopt a law that does not comply with international standards will come to an end."

However, the draft appears to have been translated verbatim, retaining U.S.-specific terminology such as "Congress," "the Library of Congress," "the State Department," and "the President of the United States."

Aleksandre Tabatadze, head of the GD Parliament’s Legal Department, acknowledged that certain references in the bill are not applicable to Georgia’s institutional framework. "The state bodies and officials involved in the law enforcement process, as outlined in the U.S. law, do not align with the Georgian reality. For example, the bill references Congress, the Library of Congress, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President of the United States," he stated.

Archil Gorduladze, chairman of the GD Parliament’s Legal Committee, noted that amendments would be necessary to designate Georgian institutions responsible for implementing the law.

This is not the first time the Foreign Agents Law has been introduced in Georgia. In 2023, GD withdrew the bill following large-scale protests and political opposition. However, in the spring of 2024, the party reintroduced and ultimately passed the legislation despite renewed public demonstrations, which were met with excessive use of force by authorities.

In February 2023, then-Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze defended an earlier version of the bill, introduced by the People’s Power faction, asserting that it aligned with human rights standards and differed from both U.S. and Russian laws by providing a "minimum standard of transparency."

Notably, in 2023, when GD first attempted to pass the Foreign Agents Law, Kobakhidze had taken a different stance on the U.S. FARA, calling it a "complete disaster." He stated, "I can tell you directly, as a lawyer and human rights specialist, that the American law is a complete disaster. We would definitely not tolerate the adoption of such a law in the Georgian Parliament."