In the U.S., the House of Representatives will debate the MEGOBARI Act on Georgia today

The U.S. House of Representatives will debate the MEGOBARI Act on Georgia today.

The MEGOBARI Act is a bipartisan initiative that would impose sweeping sanctions against the Georgian leadership. At the same time, the document calls for visa liberalization between the U.S. and Georgia, expanded economic cooperation and a broad package of security support if Tbilisi decides to return to the path of democracy and abandon anti-Western rhetoric.

Earlier in March, the MEGOBARI Act was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

To become law, the document must pass through both chambers and receive the signature of the U.S. president.

MEGOBARI is an acronym; the word means “friend” in Georgian. The full title of the bill is “An Act to Mobilize and Empower Georgia to Strengthen Accountability, Sustainability, and Independence.”

The ruling Georgian Dream has a sharply negative attitude towards the MEGOBARI Act. There they called it “hostile”, all supporters of the bill inside the country were labeled traitors, and the American authors and co-sponsors were labeled a “deep state”. Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, believes that a more appropriate name for the bill would be the Georgian word “umaduri” (ungrateful).

The author of the bill is Republican Congressman Joe Wilson. He introduced the initiative to coincide with the passage of Georgia's foreign agents law in May 2024. Earlier this year, Wilson reintroduced the document in the new Congress. 18 congressmen from both parties co-sponsored the bill.

Then, on March 5, the bill was introduced to the Senate by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, co-sponsored by Republican Jim Risch, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee. Both senators have been involved in Georgia issues for years.

Reprinted from https://www.newsgeorgia.ge/