On June 19, Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, accused the British Embassy of withholding information about its funding of NGOs ahead of the 2024 elections and reiterated that financing propaganda and extremism in another country violates international law.
Papuashvili stated that the British Embassy had ignored his request for a week to disclose the amount of funding provided to NGOs before the 2024 elections and the identities of current recipients. He emphasized that this lack of transparency violates both the Paris Declaration on Aid Transparency and the Agreement on Strategic Partnership and Cooperation between Georgia and the United Kingdom.
Addressing the case of the NGO Academy of the Future, Papuashvili noted that the organization, represented by Gia Japaridze, who is number 5 on the National Movement party list, was defended by the British Embassy as an objective election observer. The embassy, according to Papuashvili, claimed it intended to fund the group for its monitoring activities, questioning what connection this had with supporting extremism. Despite these claims, he pointed out that a full week had passed since his initial inquiry without any disclosure from the embassy.
Papuashvili reiterated in his statement that "funding propaganda and extremism in another country is a violation of international law," directly addressing London’s actions.