"We are looking very carefully at what we can do in response to this and I anticipate that we will be taking action," he told a House of Representatives hearing in Washington.

Tbilisi's parliament recently passed a law requiring any non-governmental organisation or media outlet receiving more than 20 percent of its funding from abroad to register as an agent of foreign influence and be subject to state oversight.

Critics have dubbed the legislation the "Russian law" because of its similarity to one passed in Moscow to stifle dissent, and it has sparked large protests in Georgia.

Georgia's pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili has vetoed the law, but the ruling Georgian Dream party says it has enough votes in parliament to override her decision.

"We are very concerned about the foreign agents law that has been passed. I think it is straight out of the Moscow playbook unfortunately, and it flies in the face of the overwhelming desire of the Georgian people to move closer to the European Union and to European integration," the US secretary of state said.

Blinken noted that the European Union was also assessing the impact of the law on Georgia's candidate status for EU membership, which was granted to the Caucasus nation in December.

A former Soviet republic, Georgia has been an official candidate for EU membership since December 2023 and also aspires to join NATO.

Also on Monday, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged Georgian authorities to follow a recommendation by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission to scrap the foreign influence law to safeguard the foundations of democracy.

"We call on the authorities to follow the recommendation, in order to safeguard the essential elements of Georgia's democracy," Borrell said on the social media platform Twitter.

According to the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe, "the restrictions imposed by the law on the rights and freedoms of expression, association and respect for private life are incompatible with the strict conditions set out by the European Convention on Human Rights" and the requirements of "a democratic society".

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