UK stops funding democracy development in Georgia

The new Georgian law on “foreign agents” has forced the United Kingdom to withdraw grant proposals to support the transparency of municipal elections scheduled for October.

The UK will not be able to fund projects aimed at supporting the transparency and competitiveness of municipal elections in Georgia because of the new legislative regulations on foreign grants adopted at the initiative of the “Georgian Dream” Party. This was reported by the Embassy of the United Kingdom to Georgia on June 11.

According to the diplomatic mission’s report, the UK’s plans to fund projects to develop democracy in the run-up to the municipal elections in Georgia scheduled for October 4 were discussed with the country’s government. The authorities of Georgia reported that the government decree “On the procedure for approving grants” has not been ready and there are no mechanisms yet for distributing grant funds in accordance with the new laws.

The projects that the UK planned to support were previously discussed with the Georgian Central Election Commission (CEC), and the commission “considered those activities valuable,” the report states.

“The United Kingdom has made good faith efforts to obtain grant approval for a number of projects aimed at civil society voter education and citizen election monitoring. (...) Unfortunately, due to legal uncertainty, we have had to cancel planned grant applications,” the British embassy emphasized in its statement as quoted by the “InterPressNews” news agency.

The British diplomatic mission to Georgia has also expressed its regret that the Georgian authorities did not invite an OSCE/ODIHR observer mission to observe the upcoming municipal elections. The British diplomats have noted that the previous municipal elections in Georgia had been held in the presence of the OSCE/ODIHR observer mission and stated that “the absence of professionally trained observers reduces public confidence in the transparency of the democratic process in Georgia.”

This was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 12, 2025 at 02:55 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.