“Nezavisimaya Gazeta”: “The European Bank finds no “initiatives centre” in Russia”
In its new "Strategy for the Russian Federation. 2009-2012" published last week, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) called Dmitry Medvedev's ability to make decisions into question. In the Bank's opinion, this will only serve to make the political situation even more difficult for reforms.
As a political financial institution, the EBRD allocates money mainly on political grounds - to help the former socialist countries build a capitalist economy and implement liberal reforms, for instance. Strategy is the EBRD's basic document, and it is adopted once every three years. The Bank distributes billions of euros on the basis of that document. By October 1, 2009, Russia accounted for 7 billion euros, or 31%, of the EBRD's total portfolio of credits and investments. As a rule, the Bank's document assesses a country's performance in implementing market reforms and diminishing government participation in the economy.
The latest report examines the effectiveness of the Medvedev-Putin tandem and concludes that it contributes absolutely nothing to reform. "There are no significant signs of differences between the President and Prime Minister (who are long-time political allies); however, there are occasionally some disagreements within the Cabinet and between the Cabinet and the Presidential Executive Office over some key policy issues.
While this is certainly normal in a functioning democracy, in Russia's partially consolidated democratic system, divisions over policy are less likely to get ironed out by means of a transparent process - one which involves voters and civil society-and instead build up to a political stalemate," the new EBRD strategy reads.
Indeed, the Europeans are not even quite sure who is making all the decisions in Russia: although the Russian Constitution clearly gives greater powers to the President than to the Prime Minister, it's still unclear which of the two is actually making key decisions. This complicates the political situation when it comes to implementing reforms. As the Bank's experts see it, Mr Putin devoted his presidential term to consolidating his power, while Medvedev has yet to prove that he's a leader fully capable of making key decisions.
According to the document, President Medvedev campaigned for office on a platform of political pluralism, open society, the rule of law and good governance free of corruption, but since his inauguration in May 2008, there have only been a few signs of tangible progress in this direction, and many initiatives have been delayed...In his first state of the nation address, President Medvedev announced a major political reform to extend the Presidential term of office from four to six years, and the Duma's term from four to five years. This move can weaken political accountability. The ideas of economic and political reform have been announced, but have never actually been translated into a concrete programme with a clear initiatives centre, the EBRD stresses. The Bank welcomes the President's ideas on modernisation and fighting corruption, but notes that there is simply not enough being done to implement these ideas, and, more importantly, there is no consistent political will to get to the root of the problem.
Based on its conclusions, the Bank has a list of demands for authorities, which includes contributing more actively to the free exchange of ideas and information, opening up communication with civil society, broadening political competition and delivering on the promises to fight corruption, establish the rule of law and reform the judiciary. Interestingly enough, despite giving bad marks to Russian reforms, the Bank is not actually renouncing cooperation with our country. In fact, as of October 1, 2009, the EBRD Board of Directors has already approved a 1.7 billion euro loan for Russian companies.
Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov is certain that the more ideological the Russian leaders' answers are to questions about the ruling tandem, the less transparent the situation is for the West: "Their arguments fail to explain anything. They're couched in an idiom that the Western audience doesn't understand. The thinking is institutionalized there, and the zones of responsibility are more clearly divided." He notes that from Europe's point of view, the good personal chemistry between the members of the tandem is not the most important factor. Either way, the assessments made by the European financial institution are unlikely to put a dent in the country's image: "For the most part, the report's assessment coincides with the assessments made by Russian analysts. The gap between announced modernisation and its practical implementation is certainly no secret, either in or outside of Russia."
Elina Bilevskaya
