Before introducing amendments to this year's budget, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will discuss the amended parameters of the nation's main financial document with the opposition parties in the Duma. The Communists are expected to be the first to meet with the Prime Minister. The KPRF at the Duma has prepared an updated anti-crisis package.
Vladimir Putin is expected to meet at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence with the leaders of the KPRF and the deputies in charge of economic affairs in Parliament on Friday. Next in line are the leaders of A Just Russia and LDPR. The Prime Minister deliberately chose not to have all the opposition leaders together to keep their positions from being blurred amid mutual arguments.
The Prime Minister held similar meetings with all the Duma parties in the autumn on the eve of budget hearings at the Duma, that time with all the members of the Duma parties. Now only their leaders will be meeting with Putin. There may be a point to this, since only the amendments and not the whole document will be discussed.
Last Friday Vladimir Putin had his first meeting in the new format with the leadership of United Russia and the heads of Duma committees in charge of the economy. The Prime Minister obviously felt it would be wrong to rely only on his loyal United Russia party in discussing amendments to the budget parameters and had decided to listen to alternative viewpoints.
The Communists began their preparation for the meeting with the Prime Minister well in advance, two weeks ago. They are planning to submit their anti-crisis programme to Mr Putin. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov unveiled some of the Party's initiatives during President Medvedev's meeting with the heads of the parliamentary parties in late January, and now it is the Prime Minister's turn to acquaint himself with the Communists' anti-crisis proposal.
The Communist anti-crisis programme is three-pronged, Communist deputy Vadim Solovyov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. First, support for the real sector of the economy. "The Government's assistance to the banking system has not yielded the desired results. Enterprises are unable to obtain bank loans at acceptable interest rates; interest has topped 30%. Therefore, mechanisms of direct funding of enterprises must be launched," Mr Solovyov said. He thinks it would be proper if the Government got part of the enterprise assets in exchange for financial assistance as collateral. "I think that would be the right thing to do," Mr Solovyov concluded.
The Communists' second demand is massive financing of the programmes to create new jobs and retrain people who have lost their jobs. "The amounts currently allocated for these purposes are incommensurate with the level of unemployment. In connection with this, we believe that budget money should be redistributed in favour of support for the unemployed and for pensions," the Communist representative noted. He said something had to be done about it quickly because food prices had gone up by 30-40% in recent months while household incomes had fallen. The third financing priority, according to the Communists, is support for agriculture.
The Communists predict that on its present pace, the budget deficit may reach 15%, despite the fact that Prime Minister Putin assured United Russia members last Friday that, under the new budget version, the deficit will not be higher than in America, where it has reached 12%. The leaders of A Just Russia and LDPR have not yet been invited to meet with the Prime Minister, but they expect to be invited soon. A Just Russia has long been seeking an audience with Mr Putin, ever since they unveiled their anti-crisis programme last autumn. In addition to easing the tax burden and cutting the VAT by 10%, they proposed concrete measures of social support that were rejected by the Government. "We proposed to increase the period of the payment of childcare allowances from 1.5 to 2 years in order to ease the pressure on the labour market. This is a real anti-crisis measure: creating a quasi-working place for young mothers facing the greatest risk of losing their jobs," Oksana Dmitriyeva, a deputy from A Just Russia in Parliament, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
A Just Russia is also worried about the constant attempts by United Russia to hijack their initiatives, which are first rejected and then introduced at the State Duma on behalf of the "party of power." Thus, three weeks ago A Just Russia submitted a draft law on quotas of first jobs for university graduates. The draft law was never signed, but in a meeting with the Prime Minister last Friday United Russia tried to push through a similar law on its own behalf. "It is necessary to create a mechanism for protecting copyright in party initiatives, especially in times of crisis," Ms Dmitriyeva believes.
A Just Russia will now apparently have a chance to present its grievances to Putin personally and to complain that the Government was neglecting the socialist initiatives, only to see United Russia then present them as their own.
Elina Belevskaya
