US aid suspension hits Georgian Constitutional Court and Lugar Lab

Georgian authorities have confirmed that the US’ suspension of financial aid to Georgia has affected the Constitutional Court and a disease research centre.

The US suspended $95 million in financial assistance to Georgia in late July, citing Tbilisi’s ‘anti-democratic actions’ and ‘false statements’ about the West.

On Tuesday, Georgia’s Constitutional Court told media that the US ‘temporarily abstained’ from financing its annual summer school project — a programme funded by the European Council and USAID.

In an interview with Mtavari Arkhi, Maia Kopaleishvili, a member of the opposition Coalition for Changes and a former Constitutional Court judge, said Washington’s decision to suspend aid to Georgia was ‘expected’.

‘When Georgian Dream adopted this Russian law [the foreign agent law] and launched its anti-Western rhetoric, negative reactions arose, and one of them was that the US would reconsider the financing of government projects’, she said. ‘It seems like this [suspension of summer school funding] happened as a result of that’.

The Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center, run by the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), was also reported to have been affected by a US aid cut.

However, on Tuesday, Health Minister Mikheil Sarjveladze told media that the US aid cuts only covered around ₾2 million ($740,000) of the Lugar Center’s budget, and would only affect several research projects and training programmes.

Sarjveladze expressed hope that relations between Tbilisi and Washington would return to their ‘normal rhythm’, lamenting the US’ decision to suspend some of its financial assistance to Georgia.

Irakli Kadagishvili, a ruling Georgian Dream party MP, accused the US of giving in to Russian calls for the lab’s closure.

‘Russia constantly demanded the closure of the Lugar Laboratory, and I don’t know why the [USA] is following Russia’s narratives’, he said, referring to a series of conspiracy theories and accusations from Russian officials and media that the lab was engaged in developing biological weapons.

‘If any research project in the Lugar laboratory is stopped, it is certainly bad, but no one can tell me any logical connection between transparency and the Lugar Laboratory’, he said, in a likely reference to criticism levelled against the foreign agent law, officially titled the law on transparency of foreign influence.

The US’ suspension of $95 million in aid last month was the latest Western blow to the Georgian Government over its growing anti-Western and anti-democratic turn.

At the time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that Georgia’s ‘anti-democratic actions’ and ‘false statements’ about the West were ‘incompatible with membership norms in the EU and NATO’.

It followed the US sanctioning ‘dozens’ of Georgian nationals for their role in the suppression of protests against the foreign agent law and undermining democracy in Georgia, the cancellation of joint military drills with the US, as well as the suspension of financial assistance from the EU.

On Wednesday, Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili dismissed foreign aid as a ‘tool of pressure’, stating that foreign grants did not constitute ‘half-a-percent’ of Georgia’s annual ₾29 billion ($11 billion) budget.

‘What we thought was selfless support turned out to be a tool for carrying out one’s own policy, and the moment they did not like something with the decisions and direction of the Georgian people, this tool was activated as a pressure mechanism’, he said. ‘Friendship and help don’t work like that’.

‘[When] the budget of the Ministry of Health is up to ₾8 billion ($3 billion), talking about ₾2 million ($740,000) […] is not the right approach. The state of Georgia operates with a budget that is filled by the Georgian people’.

‘We always welcome those who want to be part of various developments […] When it becomes a tool of blackmail against the Georgian people, it is not the right approach’.

Read in Armenian on CivilNet.