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Enacting the law “will compel us to fundamentally reassess our relationship with Georgia,” she added.
The bill is nearly identical to one that the governing Georgian Dream party was pressured to withdraw last year after street protests. Renewed demonstrations have rocked Georgia for weeks, with demonstrators scuffling with police, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the governing party, has vowed to veto the bill, but Georgian Dream has a majority sufficient to override it. Zourabichvili has 14 days to act.
Over the weekend, thousands poured into the streets of the capital, Tbilisi.
Inside parliament, the debate was interrupted by a brawl.
Georgian Dream MP Dimitry Samkharadze was seen charging toward Levan Khabeishvili, head of the main opposition party United National Movement, after he accused Samkharadze of organising mobs to beat up opposition supporters.
A woman holds a Georgian national and an EU flags in front of riot police blocking a street to prevent demonstrators during an opposition protest against “the Russian law” near the Parliament building in the centre of Tbilisi, Georgia.Credit: AP
In a speech Tuesday, Georgian Dream MP Archil Talakvadze accused “the radical and anti-national political opposition united by political vendetta” of using the protests for their own political purpose and “hoping for events to take a radical turn.”
Ana Tsitlidze of the United National Movement said the protests showed how unified Georgia was “in fighting for its European future.”
Another prominent opposition figure, Giorgi Vashadze, asserted that the Georgian Dream party “is completely outside the constitution, outside the law, and they are betraying our country’s European future”.
AP
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