VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
It did not turn out to be a frank conversation, a participant in Vladimir Putin's meeting with the heads of the United Russia regional branches held at the Volzhsky Utyos holiday home in Samara complained to Newsweek last Thursday. "Before the meeting the Secretary of the Presidium of the party's General Council, Vyacheslav Volodin, urged the party members to "brace themselves for a review by the leader."
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko arrived in Moscow yesterday to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to outline the gas issue. And a line will be drawn, but only in three years after the introduction of market prices.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called an extraordinary meeting Thursday on the construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO) in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence. It was announced that reverse oil shipments along the first ESPO leg would begin today with an opening ceremony.
Both Putin and Tymoshenko have been commenting on yesterday's article in Izvestia which describes how President Yushchenko armed Saakashvili's army.
Talks between Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin of Russia and Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine took place at Novo-Ogaryovo yesterday. ANDREI KOLESNIKOV, a special Kommersant correspondent, after listening to the Prime Ministers discuss events that preceded their negotiations, understood that Moscow had found its key Ukrainian partner.
Yesterday the Government gathered to discuss long-term socio-economic development through 2020. The Cabinet approved the document with some revisions, but an announced tax reform has become the main news: the unified social tax will give way to pension insurance fund contributions, which all companies are to do at the same stake - 26% of the salary fund.
The government approved the concept of Russia's development through 2020 on Wednesday, October 1, a dramatic advance that no one had expected. The Prime Minister listed the goals he expected to reach by 2020, but in reality, Russians can expect changes in their lives much sooner than that. The greatest reform is expected in the retirement pension system between 2009 and 2010.
The financial crisis, coupled with the need to improve pensioners' living standards, has forced the Government to take unpopular measures. Yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the unified social tax (UST) will be replaced in 2010 by insurance contributions. An employer will effectively pay a new social tax at the rate of 34%. The previous highest rate of the UST was 26%. To prevent a dramatic increase in the fiscal burden, the authorities promised to reduce other taxes, but which and by how much is anybody's guess.
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.
Under the guise of a final discussion on pension reform led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the White House last night, the Cabinet officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, decided the fate of Plan-2020. Their decision concerning this key component of the economic policy will be announced at the Cabinet meeting scheduled for today.
