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Mikhail Remizov, the head of the National Strategy Institute
They say that unpopular economic reforms are on todays agenda, and they have been saying it for a long time.
However, according the current agenda,
we have the realization of Putins very popular pre-election promises at hand.
And they will have to be carried out by the new government,
as it is the addressee of the first 11 Presidential orders, signed right after the inauguration.
These ideas are truly popular.
No ones against a better life, new industrialization,
Far East development, promotion of middle-class interests,
to make all those who culturally belong to this class its members according to economic standards, etc.
All these developments were promised and even stipulated in the presidential orders,
so well see in a few years whether they are realized or not.
Literally in a few years, each order has its own terms of realization.
But we should have a good memory not to forget to follow the realization of the orders
and the dynamics of the respective indicators.
The priorities are set correctly, but we need better instruments to implement them,
and a stimulating policy of state expenditure could become such an instrument,
as well as a more active industrial policy.
We lack traditional liberal recipes.
Our liberals and neo-liberals are not talking about lowering the taxation,
but they mention cutting the expenses for privatization.
As if this would make us all happy.
Europe is gradually rejecting such policy,
called a policy of phlebotomy by Paul Krugman, as they try to drain money from the sick economy,
just like they used to drain blood from a sick person.
But it is a very risky procedure, thats why they are more inclined
towards active stimulative measures from now on.
It would be very good if we adopted this practice.
However, I should say that both these economic credos have been discredited.
The first one, dirigism, was discredited in 2007
when they made absolutely correct decisions in accordance with this policy,
but the results of the creation of state corporations were still deplorable.
All the attempts to create clusters of scientific industry, aircraft-construction and so on failed.
There are some successful points, but in general it was a failure.
So I agree that both approaches are discredited,
and this is the major problem for our government.
So it is only logical that it is a government of technocrats.
For example, Mr Belousov, whose views weve discussed, is not at all a dogmatist,
and that is actually very good.
Because usually the demarcation line separates partisans of various dogmas,
on the one hand, and pragmatists on the other.
In the situation of a crisis of economic ideologies it is only logical to create a technocratic government.
As for the political aspect, there was significant staff rotation,
a lot of resignations and new faces, but theres almost no actual political reconstruction:
in fact, the deputies took a step up the ladder;
they even didnt change their branches of activity.
And their former CEOs left for the Administration and got positions
from which they will be able to influence the decisions of their former subjects.
And secondly, theres the return to the traditional model,
in which the Presidential Administration takes the lead in the area of strategy,
and the government is occupied with practical implementation of their decisions.
And the third thing is that Medvedev could still be perceived as a strong PM.
The very pause in the formation of the government tells us that the new government is a coalition one,
only the coalition isnt between the political parties; it is between the clans of influence.
It was only natural to expect such a government where the lobbies representatives would be unchangeable,
and they could be more influential than their formal CEOs.
But it turned out differently.
The new ministers are young technocrats, and their career success
is due personally to the President and the PM,
so they will more likely to be loyal to them and not to any groups of influence.
Therefore they are perfect subjects for Medvedev, he could become a real leader for them, a true team-leader.
And the fourth point is that this new government proved that theres no minister who cannot be removed.
One of the negative traits of the previous government was the seemingly eternal posts of ministers,
and not only because the ruling tandem blocked new personnel appointments trying not to break the balance,
but because certain ministers de facto became the only guarantors of stability in their respective branches.
But now, when this is gone, we can hope for better personnel decisions
and a higher level of ministers responsibility.
And the last point: the most important thing that happened in these days
is that the idea of the state corporation for Far East and Eastern Siberia development
was buried and a decision to create a special ministry for that was taken
in my opinion this decision is more in accordance with the concept of Russias sovereignty and statehood.
This decision would allow to stress the importance of the region (along with the North Caucasus)
as well as to join the executive and the presidential chains of command to lobby investment project
for the Far East development.
In my opinion, if the state corporation idea would have been realized,
it would endanger Russias integrity, I think this concept is rather frightening.
Evgeniy Minchenko, the Head of the International Institute for political expertise
I believe that all the new ministers are rather good professionals.
I have seen Manturov, Novak and Medinsky at work, they are efficient professionals.
At the same time, I believe that despite what youve said about some ideological aspects
behind the new appointments,
there were none and a lot of them were backed by different lobbies and influence groups,
and not by actual administrative needs.
I have two examples.
Why did they create the post of the Minister of the Far East and East Siberia development?
Because they had to bury the idea of the respective state corporation
that was being created especially for Mr Shoigy, but then he got appointed to the Moscow district.
So there was a risk that a person from a different influence group would head the corporation,
and in order to prevent that from happening theyve just buried the corporation.
And to avoid questions like: But youve been telling us how important the Far East is, so why..?
they decided to create the Minister for these affairs.
The post of the Minister for communication with the open government,
I believe, was created in the same way: there was a strife to appoint Abyzov the Energy Miniser,
but when they failed to do so, he became minister without portfolio.
A lot of appointments were made following this logic.
Its hard to describe the structure of the executive power for now as we:
a) will the representatives of all those law enforcement agencies retain their places,
even though they are not formally included into the government:
I mean the FSS, the Drug Control, federal Service for punishment execution and so on.
Plus I believe the Russian Financial Monitoring agency will get new powers,
and it will answer directly to the President.
So I think it would be very interesting to know who will actually head this agency.
And it seems we will be surprised by the new position of Igor Sechin:
his position in the government is destroyed, his people didnt get there too,
and he didnt enter the Presidential Administration.
I believe he'll have to get certain compensation, and a good one.
We've got a lot of wonderful pre-election promises,
and now the new government will have to carry them out,
but I believe that the very essence of the government is conservative and inertial.
There are two main reforms at hand: one doesnt trigger much argument, it is the pension reform.
Another one triggers quite an intense strife: it is the new round of the big privatization.
There are two lines of conflict here:
first one between those who want to conduct the privatization as soon as possible,
as they are ready for that and it would be beneficial for them, and those who want to postpone it.
Both parties make some arguments referring to the common good
but we should understand what it really is about.
And the second aspect of the conflict is the actual strife for the funds and actives,
and I think this strife poses a serious threat to our whole administrative system.
You remember that a similar strife let to a number of serious political crises and conflicts in the 90s.
So I think that Putin will have to use all his negotiator talent to pull this off.