Members of the European Parliament approved the resolution by a majority vote. It states that negotiations on Georgia’s accession to the EU will not be held while the law on foreign agents is in force.

Amendments were also approved calling for sanctions against the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, and the release of the third President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili called the actions of the European Parliament “the final blow of the outgoing European deputies to the Georgian people.”

“There will be elections in June, and the citizens of the European Union will hand over the mandate to more worthy persons. This is a campaign launched by several deputies, which they have been waging against the Georgian people for a long time. This resolution contains the same thing as the previous three: calls for us to release Saakashvili and impose sanctions against Russia,” Papuashvili said.

This year, protests against the re-initiation of the bill on foreign agents in Tbilisi continue for the ninth day. Thousands of people gather near the parliament building, and the police periodically disperse the crowd. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili regularly opposes the initiative of the ruling party.