Thread by @rochowanski

Days ago, the EU told Georgia it won't get candidate status unless it drops its foreign agent bill, because such a law "incompatible with EU values".

Starting a 🧵on this: 1/? politico.eu/article/eu-urs…

Here's EU High Rep for Foreign Affairs&Security Policy Josep Borrell: "incompatible with EU values and standards"
All while his colleagues are drafting a #foreignagent law on their own. Their obliviousness and double standards are really something... 2/?
eeas.europa.eu/eeas/georgia-s…

I've been saying forever that any self-respecting country will want to make sure they know and can control which foreign actors are paying for which activities within its jurisdiction. Let's just say it didn't win me friends, in my line of work. 3/?
discomfortzone.substack.com/p/activism-nat…

Guess who's sharing the news about the EU's #foreignagent law most? Georgians. Some are alienated by the EU's hypocrisy, others (like this one), bizarrely, worry that the EU's draft law might turn Georgia away from the EU towards Russia. 4/?

https://twitter.com/Tabagari/status/1635362642536857600?s=20

Not that I feel vindicated. It's always been evident that wealthy Western countries would never permit the capture of their civil society and policy-making that EU aspirants are told makes them "modern democracies, worthy future members of the club. They're being gaslit. 5/?

Only one thing in this is genuinely interesting: why now? I'd guess because foreign influence has encroached uncomfortably upon EU policy-making, or at least has caused embarrassment. Legal theorists would say regulation happens when a subject requiring regulation emerges. 6/6