We welcome that the new US administration has not only exposed harmful practices but has also begun mitigating risks, recognizing that foreign influence requires transparency. Such a statement made today the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament.

“The Romans were wise people, and I have repeated their sayings many times – “Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi”, which means “Gods may do what cattle may not”. This is how geopolitics works, with disparities between large and small. What some want for themselves, they are reluctant to grant others. Moscow and other capitals have been reluctant to grant us certain things, but we must look after ourselves. We withstood that pressure then.

The most interesting thing is that it has the same name – ‘transparency of foreign influence’ – in this case, specifically at higher education institutions. Even terminologically, it’s identical to our law on Transparency of Foreign Influence.

In 2023, the Biden administration’s ambassador, Kelly Degnan, was the 1st to call this Georgian law a ‘Russian law’.

She 1st said it, she invented this term, and now from the new administration, we know how these schemes operate, how USAID, NED, and other funders were involved, how they give directives to their funded NGOs to undermine democracy in other countries, how they control the media.

Remember that for the first time in Georgia’s history, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a person, attempting to burn a police officer alive. Two years have passed since 2023, and not a single outspoken diplomat has condemned the throwing of Molotov cocktails - quite the opposite.

We are glad that the new administration has not only exposed and acknowledged the harmful practices through which American money was spent in other countries to undermine others, but has also begun to mitigate the risks we have been talking about for so many years – that foreign influence needs transparency”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.