Archil Talakvadze Criticizes Opposition for Attempting to 'Personalize' 'De-Oligarchization' Bill
By Liza Mchedlidze
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Archil Talakvadze, a member of the parliamentary majority, told reporters regarding the 'de-oligargizaion' bill that the opposition wanted to personalize the draft law when they demanded to include specific names in it, and according to him, the Venice Commission criticized this approach.
"People directly asked to write down the name of a specific person, what statements did we make?! - I remember our statements by heart: when the opposition changed its position diametrically - at first they were telling us, you won't dare to pass the law, then they turned around and said that this law is bad, so we made statements that someone pointed out to them from behind the scenes that potential oligarchs might be financing them, so they saw a danger in this law. It is incorrect to point a hand at us here, the Venice Commission criticized exactly the request for personalization that the radical opposition had," said Talakvadze.
Regarding the conclusion of the Venice Commission, according to which the bill submitted for evaluation is personalized and they prefer a systematic approach, Talakvadze said that the implementation of systemic reforms and the adoption of the de-oligarchization project will not interfere with each other.
"As for the systemic approach, yes, there is such an approach, Georgia has continuously improved all system components over the years, and we will continue this work in the future. All this was up to a certain level, which had positive evaluations when Georgia accepted this recommendation, meaning, the European Union considered that something more needs to be done, and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have similar recommendations, they have also initiated a similar law. This does not interfere with each other, the improvement of system components will continue, the parliament will also adopt this law in the most sophisticated form," said Talakvadze.
