Russian prime minister Mikhail Fradkov obliged the members of the Federation Council and State Duma by not opposing the participation of senators and deputies in the work of the boards of the new ministries, services, and agencies.
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Mikhail Fradkov Delivers His April Theses
// Protocol
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov came to the government hour in the Federation Council yesterday. He very clearly formulated five tasks, which by his own admission were “ambitious and almost without alternatives”.
As he mounted the rostrum of the Federation Council, Mikhail Fradkov explained why he had come: “To sense to mood.” Because “the large-scale tasks that life and the president have set us” cannot be accomplished informally; we have to consider the opinions of all levels of government. Mr. Fradkov began his talk with the notorious “oil habit”: if the Russian economy is not freed from it, economic growth rates will inevitably fall to 3–4% per year, in which case we can forget about doubling GDP and an all-out war against poverty. The war on poverty with simultaneous reform of the health care and education systems was in fact the first item on the list of tasks Mikhail Fradkov set the government.
The second item on the list was “the creation of a management system capable of effectively fulfilling specific strategic objectives”. The matter concerned administrative reform, which had only just begun. The prime minister plans to create “an integral system of management technologies encompassing government finances, innovative processes, territorial development, human capital formation, and support of the population's vital activities”.
Mr. Fradkov's third thesis concerned competitiveness: he spoke of the need to create “a tough environment that would select competitive industries”. In the prime minister's opinion, the government must assist in creating a financial market infrastructure in order to promote the conversion of savings into investments or innovation techniques. In his words, “obstacles must be attacked and eliminated with the public's consent”.
Mr. Fradkov's fourth thesis was devoted to “integrating business into solving the strategic problems facing the country”. He particularly emphasized that there must be no infringement of either the interests of business or the legitimate interests of the state”. However, the mechanisms themselves remained a mystery: Mr. Fradkov spoke vaguely of “implementing large-scale government and business projects that would activate the existing potential for expanding exports and displacing imports of high-end products”. However, it was clear from his answer to a question regarding his attitude to private pipelines that pipeline construction projects (whether to Murmansk or Nakhodka) did not fall into this category. Mr. Fradkov made it clear that there could be no private pipelines in Russia, because “this is the government's natural competitive advantage,” although he did promise to ensure everyone equal access to this resource. There was one other “gift” from the prime minister to oil companies: he considered the question of a differentiated severance tax virtually resolved. Although he had not given anyone any instructions in this regard, the Ministry of Natural Resources was already working with all its might on this very complex problem.
Having solved business's problems, Mr. Fradkov got down to the senators and Duma deputies. He had no objections to Senator Vladimir Gusev's idea of parliamentarians taking part in the work of the boards of the new ministers, services, and agencies. Of course, the decision on such a merger of executive and legislative powers will be turned over to the heads of the ministries agencies, and services.
Finally, the fifth task formulated by the prime minister turned out to be “integration” again, this time “integrating Russia into the world economy and positioning it relative to the world economic centers of force”. With that, Mikhail Fradkov ended his talk.
Alena Kornysheva
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 15, 2004
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