The commission created to enhance the sustainability of the Russian economy, referred to by its members as KURS (the Russian acronym for Commission for Sustained Development of the Country) and popularly known as the Government's anti-crisis headquarters, is under pressure to prove that it has made amends in response to the President's criticism that some of its members are working too slowly. In other words, First Vice Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who heads up KURS, has his job cut out for him...
Early last week President Dmitry Medvedev visited the Moscow Engineering Plant Salyut, where he chaired a conference on stabilizing the real sector of the economy. He made some sharp remarks accusing the government officials of being too slow. "The implementation of the planned measures," Medvedev said, "is not proceeding as fast as we expected and, most importantly, not as fast as the current circumstances require." "I have looked at the data just now: only about 30% of what we planned has been done and the implementation of some instructions has been postponed," the President said. "Our actions and our responses must be much quicker, and we take an inexcusably long time to do certain things," he stated.
As if to confirm the thesis about the smooth work of their tandem, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved new rules of government paperwork the following day, rules that, in the opinion of government officials, should expedite the approvals between ministries and agencies and speed up the movement of documents through the government system. Under the new rules, agencies have no more than 30 days to secure all necessary approvals and if the officials concerned fail to react within that period, the document will be deemed approved by default. The Vice Premiers will now have the final say on all disputed issues.
Sources at the White House say that the new rule approved by Putin marks the end of the era in which it took months and sometimes years to secure approvals. In addition, it will give Putin's deputies, most notably Igor Shuvalov, Head of the Government Commission on Sustained Development of the Russian Economy, more clout. The only Vice Premier who may see his powers shrinking is Head of Government Staff Sergei Sobyanin, as the new scheme envisages a reduced rule of the Government Staff.
For Shuvalov it will be a sort of compensation for the moral stress he endures in his new job. In fact, it was he and some members of his commission who were the targets of the President's critical remarks (most of the Commission members are department head, deputy ministers and ministers). Sadly, Shuvalov, who is said to be an all-out workaholic, has not done anything to provoke criticism, and yet he will have to answer for everything. It would be foolish to expect President Medvedev to criticize Prime Minister Putin for government officials not hustling enough.
Another official who saw his powers increased last week is Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. President Medvedev put Mr Chaika's office in charge of a key element of the crisis management effort: protecting the labour and social rights of citizens. The Prosecutor's Office will now have the right to go to court to protect people's social rights (to work, pensions, healthcare, motherhood and childhood, education, the environment, and government and municipal housing) pursuant to their appeals.
The appeals may come not only from individual citizens but from "an uncertain circle of people," as Mr Chaika put it. "The Prosecutor will react not only to the violation of the rights of individual citizens, but also when the interests of entire work collectives and enterprises are affected," Interfax news agency quoted Mr Chaika as saying.
"We have everything [to tackle the new task], a professional cadre and a powerful intellectual potential, a broad statesmanlike approach, and high international authority," the Prosecutor General said. He pledged that "all the tasks the President, society, and our times set before us will be fulfilled," after all, "who else but us can do it?"
Incidentally, protecting the labour rights of citizens is an increasingly popular topic among Russian politicians. A "white collar" trade union held a meeting on New Year's Eve to elect Andrei Isayev, First Deputy Secretary of the Presidium of the United Russia General Council and Duma Deputy, as its President and State Duma Deputy Vladimir Medinsky, the party's coordinator for work with office employees, as its Chairman.
Speaking about the protection of the interests of white-collar workers in times of crisis, Mr Isayev said that trade unions would demand that the employer explain every case of firing, negotiate and press for preserving the maximum number of workplaces. "We know that very often people are dismissed not because of the crisis, but simply because the employer takes advantage of the situation to get rid of undesirable workers or optimize structure and cut costs," the party and trade union leader noted. Now, the newly appointed trade union bosses have indicated that employers should think twice about "optimizing the structure" and "cost-cutting" in the context of the crisis, and that Mr Chaika would be on the side of the trade unions. In short, if the white-collar trade union has things its way, we can look forward to mass bankruptcies and massive unemployment. If it doesn't, we will face only the latter.
Among last week's winners was Deputy Head of Presidential Executive Office) Alexander Beglov, who has become the head of the newly formed Presidential Council for Cossack Affairs. The Council's main task is "to prepare proposals for the President to identify priorities of government policy with regard to the Russian Cossacks, to inform the head of state on Cossacks affairs, to take part in drafting legal regulation connected with the Cossacks, and to ensure the interaction between the federal, regional, and local government bodies, on the one hand, and the Cossack communities and associations on the other." So, if anything, Mr Beglov will have his hands full in these mirthless crisis times.
On the whole, it was a good week for everyone except perhaps the Communists. The VGTRK sent a reply to the KPRF's (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) query about who had paid the cost of Vladimir Putin's live Q&A session on December 4, which was broadcast by two VGTRK TV channels and three radio stations, and what the cost of the air time was. It follows from the response that "no air time was granted to Vladimir Putin; neither Vladimir Putin nor the United Russia party paid for the air time; no contract on information services between the party and the TV channel had been signed". "Conversation with Vladimir Putin" was the initiative of the VGTRK, which never intended the Prime Minister's Q&A session programme to generate any commercial profits, but simply wanted to inform the citizens about key social and political events. The VGTRK thinks this approach was vindicated by the more than 40% approval rating of Putin's Q&A session programme.
Gennady Zyuganov's supporters found this reply disappointing. Citing the law that stipulates equal access of all parties (and their leaders) to the airwaves, the KPRF intends to demand that the VGTRK broadcast for free, on the same five media outlets, a three-hour "Conversation with Gennady Zyuganov", KPRF chief lawyer and State Duma Deputy Vadim Solovyov declared.
A three-hour live conversation with Gennady Zyuganov promises to be fun. And then perhaps Vladimir Zhirinovsky will join the show...
* * *
THE WEEK'S WINNERS AND LOSERS
Igor Shuvalov
First Deputy Prime Minister
+0.7
Yuri Chaika
Prosecutor General of the RF
+0.5
Alexander Beglov
Deputy Chief of the Presidential Executive Office
+0.3
Vadim Solovyov
State Duma Deputy
+0.2
Sergei Sobyanin
Deputy Prime Minister of the RF
-0.1
Gennady Zyuganov
KPRF leader
-0.2
Andrei Isayev
First Deputy Secretary of the Presidium, United Russia General Council
-0.5
Vladimir Medinsky
State Duma Deputy
-0.7
The politicians' marks were given by: Mikhail Vinogradov, President of the Petersburg Politics Fund; Iosif Diskin, Co-Chairman of the National Strategy Council; Vladimir Zharikhin, Deputy Director, CIS Institute; Alexei Mukhin, Director-General, Political Information Center; Dmitry Oreshkin, senior research fellow with the RAS Institute of Geography; Dmitry Orlov, Director-General of the Political and Economic Communications Agency; Andrei Ryabov, Chief Editor of the journal "World Economy and International Relations"; Valery Khomyakov, Director General of the National Strategy Council.
Vladimir Rudakov