With the US still undecided about what to do with its financial crisis, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday had to make important decisions on his own. The Russian Government's meeting, which again failed to approve the concept of the country's long-term development through 2020 (but instead approved almost all its main components) was preceded by very nervous expectation and some developments, unnoticed by the general public, that have prompted our special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov to draw some far-reaching conclusions.
The Government meeting was to start at 2 p.m. But it started after 3 p.m. All this time Vladimir Putin was inside the Government building working over documents. Everybody knew what the documents were. It was the concept of Russia's long-term development through 2020 whose adoption could no longer be postponed without raising eyebrows. However, to adopt it was impossible. So, it was a race against the clock. The Government members had come to the White House, so had the journalists. It only remained to raise the curtain. But this did not happen.
The journalists waited at the press centre where a live visual from the refurbished Cabinet meeting room could be viewed (no such transmission was possible in the Decorations Hall where the Cabinet held its meeting previously). So, journalists did not need to be invited into the conference room, much to the relief of everyone except the journalists themselves.
Meanwhile the situation in the conference hall was jittery. The ministers were discussing something intensely in muted voices. True, the drama of the situation, compounded by the stage-like pause caused by the absence of the main protagonist, did not prevent at least one person with steel nerves, Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov, from having a good nap while sitting at the table. He was obviously fast asleep. He did not wake up even when the ministers who had waited for the start of the meeting for more than a quarter of an hour (before that they waited a long time in the lounge and inside the conference room) started moving their chairs loudly when, after being told that the meeting was being postponed for another fifteen minutes, they rose from their seats and made for the lounge. A minute earlier direct transmission to the press centre had been cut off: no big deal as all this time the camera was trained on the dead-serious face of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov.
Vladimir Putin was still deliberating in his office. Apparently the decisions which he eventually announced were made at the eleventh-hour. One sign was that after the Ministers were again invited into the room and had taken their seats and were waiting in total silence (the tense silence woke up even Mr Konovalov) Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was suddenly summoned to Vladimir Putin's office.
In another five or seven minutes Minister of Health and Social Development, Tatyana Golikova, was summoned to the Prime Minister's office. They were absent for about twenty minutes or more. They came back into the conference room together looking either tired or pleased.
It was not until another Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Sobyanin, appeared in the conference room that it became clear that the meeting was about to start. Ever since Vladimir Putin was the President and Mr Sobyanin the chief of his staff it was a strictly observed rule, especially at the President's Monday meetings with the Cabinet members: Sergei Sobyanin appeared first followed by Vladimir Putin within a minute or two. That routine is preserved at the Government House.
As soon as Mr Sobyanin (who had been in the office with Vladimir Putin all along) appeared in the doorway everyone, including Alexander Konovalov, realized that the countdown had begun.
And sure enough, the Prime Minister appeared in a couple of minutes, and several minutes later it became clear that Mr Kudrin had not visited the Prime Minister's office in vain. In the argument between the Minister of Economic Development and the Finance Minister, the latter prevailed in supporting the Ministry of Health and Social Development: the single social tax has been replaced with insurance premiums. That increased the burden on business: employers used to pay 26% into the budget in the shape of social tax, now they will pay a total of 34%, which will be called insurance premiums.
After the Prime Minister's speech it became plain that the main battles between the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Economic Development still lay ahead as no decision had been made on the VAT. In fact, the issue was put on hold for another year, so there will be no VAT cut this year. This was probably the topic that Vladimir Putin discussed with Alexei Kudrin (who is known to be categorically opposed to a cut of the VAT rate). Tatyana Golikova had been summoned to be told the good tidings: insurance premiums for her agency would be determined separately.
While he was filling in the ministers on the current situation Vladimir Putin was very concentrated. He was aware of the drastic nature of the measures being taken, as he kept repeating from time to time. In fact, he sounded almost apologetic when he referred to the conditions in which these measures were being introduced. He sounded bitter as he put all the blame for these conditions on the United States.
"Russia has long been part of the world economy," he was saying, obviously not reading from his notes which he had put aside, "everything that is happening... started in the US... it was there that the real crisis began... and now we see that it is unable to make adequate decisions."
Vladimir Putin seemed to be very angry with the US for being unable to adopt adequate decisions (for example the $700 billion anti-crisis plan) making it necessary for innocent Russia, including him, Vladimir Putin, to clear up the mess. The thinly veiled message was that if he had been given a chance to sort it all out he would have done so long ago because it was actually no big deal. All that it takes is to organize the work of the US Congress in the same way as the work of the State Duma and the Federation Council in Russia. Some other things might need to be attended to... but there were no intractable problems.
"This is not the irresponsibility of individuals," Vladimir Putin was taking the US Administration and Government to task. This is lack of responsibility of a system that is incapable of exercising its declared leadership in the world economy and indeed of making adequate decisions."
Vladimir Putin seemed to suggest that nothing similar to the developments in America was happening in Russia. He said the long-term economic development plans would not be scaled down or even postponed. He seemed to be addressing all the leaders across the Atlantic who were unable to take adequate measures, apparently in the hope of making them see the light.
