The silhouettes of the real oligarchs can only be seen on their side, not the governments

And I will remind those who may not remember, for example, Ms. Ursula von der Leyen’s assessment of the Ukrainian law, which she expressed on 17 June of this year while speaking about the European perspectives of the three states of the Associated Trio. Here is what the President of the European Commission stated: “Ukraine has adopted a bold law to break the oligarchs' grip on Ukraine's economic, political and public life. In fact, it is the only country in the Eastern Partnership that has done so.”

And after this, the Georgian opposition is trying to criticize the authorities because, in order to fulfil the precondition of so-called deoligarchization required to obtain EU membership candidate status, they took the Ukrainian law of deoligarchization and its key principle – which was positively assessed by the President of the European Commission and the European Commission in general – as the working version, tailored it to the Georgian legal system, and proposed it to the Parliament for consideration.

I would like to ask the public to imagine, for a moment, had Georgia not started its work on the basis of the Ukrainian project, how many times would the opposition have said the following: Why is it necessary to reinvent the bicycle? The authorities do not want to take real steps, and so on.

But it is more important to ask the following question: Won’t the European Commission itself be surprised and displeased if, in order to convince the European Commission in the area of deoligarchization, [Georgia] were to take steps other than those that the European Commission approves of?!

Let no one think that this is a simple lack of principles demonstrated by the opposition. This is caused solely by the fear that in reality, this law will create discomfort for everyone who has the intention to become an oligarch and the opposition understands, clearly and very well, that the line of those who want to become oligarchs – the silhouettes of the real oligarchs – can only be seen on their side, behind their backs and not the government’s," said the MP.

- Mikheil Sarjveladze, Chairman of the Human Rights Protection and Civil Integration Committee, said at the plenary session of the Parliament.