Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday approved in a third and final reading a controversial bill on “foreign agents” despite large-scale protests against the legislation. But the debate was again far from serene.

During the debate on the bill, Georgian television broadcast a shoving match between the ruling party and opposition lawmakers, who pushed and gesticulated angrily.

In the footage, Georgian MP Dimitry Samkharadze can be seen lunging at Levan Khabeishvili, the chairman of the main opposition United National Movement party, after Khabeishvili accused him of organising mobs to beat up opposition supporters.

Other MPs then piled in, causing a melee in the Georgian parliament.

Outside, around 1,000 demonstrators had gathered outside the parliament building during the debate, with riot police firing tear gas and water cannon as they tried to storm the building after hearing that the bill had been passed.

It is not the first time that MPs have come to blows in the Georgian parliament over the “foreign agents” law. In April, a debate on the same topic ended with one MP punching another in the face.

The legislation has been the target of large opposition demonstrations since early April, some of which have been broken up by force. The law requires organisations, media outlets and similar entities that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents”, similar to a law in Russia.

The government says the measure is intended to make organisations “more transparent” about their funding, but in Russia the law has been used to silence critical media and opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of people formed a human chain overnight to block MPs from entering parliament, but police violently detained dozens of protesters after dawn.

Georgia was granted EU candidate status in December after what the European Commission called an “impressive commitment” by Georgians to European integration.

However, in recent days, 12 EU foreign ministers sent a letter to the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi criticising Tbilisi’s plans to adopt the “foreign agents” law.

“The government of Georgia – to our deep regret – seems set on a course that risks jeopardising the country’s prospects for further European and Euro-Atlantic integration,” said the letter, dated 10 May and quoted by pan-European media network Euractiv.

See the video of the scuffles in the gallery above.

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