Georgia's EU plans put on hold after LGBTQP ban

Published 18 September 2024 at 13.30

EU. The Georgian parliament has now finally approved the long-awaited package of 19 bills which essentially ban propaganda aimed at children for things like gender reassignment and homosexuality. This makes it clear that the country's EU negotiations will be frozen by Brussels, Novya Gazeta reports.

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According to the ruling party Georgian Dream, the proposals aim to promote “family values” and the protection of minors, Georgian news site Publika reported on Tuesday.

The bills include an explicit ban on same-sex marriage and adoption in the country, as well as a ban on surgical sex reassignment.

Furthermore, spreading so-called “LGBTQ propaganda” in schools and media where children can see them is a criminal offence.

A total of 84 MPs voted in favor of the proposals, giving a comfortable majority in the 150-seat chamber.

Many opposition politicians chose to boycott the vote and did not attend the session, realizing they were too few to change the outcome .

The package of laws now goes to US-loyal President Salome Zourabichivili who is expected to veto the laws, after which Georgian Dream is likely to vote to override the veto.

The proposed laws echo protective legislation against LGBTQP activities among children the Kremlin has introduced in recent years, which led Russia's Supreme Court in November to label the “international LGBTQ movement” an “extremist organization”.

Georgisk Dröm's founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili has in the past year increasingly shifted his political focus towards Moscow and away from Europe, after the former corrupt and pro-Western government partly embarrassed EU and Washington-loyal liberals in the country.

In July, the EU paused Georgia's accession negotiations after the Tbilisi government pushed through a long-awaited law against “foreign agents”, similar to the Russian law used by the Kremlin to deal with the problem of both RFSL-like operations and pure foreign intelligence services which hides within association life.

After Georgia has now also gone its own way on the homosexual issue, which is central to EU membership, it is clear in practice that the country's path towards membership in the union is put on hold for long time to come.