Vladimir Putin met with Sergei Mironov and Nikolai Levichev

This is the prime minister's second meeting with the leaders of parties represented in the Duma, in anticipation of his speech there and the reports from the government. The conversation this time was about food prices and the situation in the agricultural sector, problems of corruption, disparities in wages and in regional development, as well as the modernisation of education.

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Mironov, Mr Levichev. You know that the government is preparing to report to parliament in April. Accordingly, I would like to consult with all the political parties represented in the Duma, to talk about how we have worked together to implement a raft of anti-crisis measures. The government – as you know – adopted some of them, including your submissions. Let's talk about the priorities of social development, issues of health, education and social services in general. Let's consider your proposals relating to further removal of bureaucratic obstacles and administrative barriers in the economy and, of course, discuss budget priorities for 2012, with a view to balancing the budget, so that fiscal policy can stimulate economic development and focus on the unconditional fulfilment of our social obligations to the citizens of the Russian Federation. I am referring to the timely payment of pensions, social benefits and raising household incomes. Let's discuss all these issues in order to accommodate your ideas and proposals in the report and the government's plans for the near future.

Sergei Mironov: We would like to express our vision of those issues that, firstly, our party will probably put during your report to the State Duma, and, in particular, identify some of our positions. We have four main themes. We have chosen these four themes based on what people write to us, write to the party and me personally. In addition, during the election campaign for the March 13 elections, Mr Levichev and I travelled a lot in the regions and met with many people. And we isolated four key issues that currently concern our citizens very much. I'll name them all, share my thoughts on two of them and Mr Levichev will do so for the other two.

The issues are the following. The first is rising food prices and the parallel situation in our agricultural sector, including the tremendous difficulties brought on by the fires and drought last year, as well as what awaits us this year. This is the first issue. The second issue is anti-corruption measures and curbing the lawlessness of many officials in the field. This is what matters to people. The third issue – are issues that concern our people associated with the commercialisation of both the education and health care systems. And the fourth issue is the increases in utility rates. I would like to address the first two issues – the food policy and food prices and corruption.

Regarding price increases, we already have made, including on your behalf, a proposal – the proposal was also made on behalf of the President, Dmitry Medvedev – on the possibility of establishing regional food funds. What is this? Your decision was absolutely correct, and we, like you said, recognised this – when there is a bad harvest year, we immediately need to stop grain exports in order to regulate, somewhat, the market. This has, indeed, been a positive approach.

We believe that if each region were allocated money from regional budgets in advance for the guaranteed purchase of agricultural products at guaranteed prices – that even though nobody knows what kind of a harvest year it will be, we would know what the maximum price will be in the spring, and not higher, and that the minimum will also be set – then farmers would know that the regional authorities would buy this or that product on behalf of the state. This would be the very fund from which we could, without intermediaries, dump a particular product on the regional market.

Vladimir Putin: In other words, establish regional intervention funds...

Sergei Mironov: Absolutely correct. We call it a regional food bank. This brings me to a topic that excites our farmers today. The fact is that, as you know, five million hectares of winter crops were not planted due to the weather conditions last year. Spring is now two weeks late in the European part of Russia and sowing has been postponed. In this context, professionals, farmers – I recently met with them – say that now the most pressing problem, the conventional problem that the government, I hope, will resolve – is the price of fuel. But there is another problem. Russia distributes about 12 million tonnes of fertiliser per year, having very large deposits of both potash and phosphate fertilisers. One estimate indicates that only about 1.5 million tonnes stays in Russia. The rest is exported. Landowners say that if you simply decide to leave most of the fertiliser in the domestic market – I’m not even talking about the price here, though this too, is worth thinking about – if you supply fertiliser to those fields that still remain, then we could gain a significant advantage. We also suggest considering such a proposal.

Vladimir Putin: I would like to understand the mechanism – how would we leave it here?

Sergei Mironov: The mechanism... It is clear that there are signed contracts. But in the end, taking into account the issue of national security and food security, we can consider this as a sort of force majeure situation. And if the government gives companies – and now it is all private companies in the fertiliser market – the following introductory offer: to consider the possibility of reducing or deferring the delivery of fertiliser, and direct most of the inventory to the domestic market, I think this issue can be resolved.

Vladimir Putin: Well, you are right in mentioning long-term contracts. And you need to look at it systematically, in order to aid the agricultural sector, support it and shoulder the burden in time, and in order not to bring down the chemical industry, not to undermine its competitiveness on global markets.

Sergei Mironov: Of course. Competition is fierce and we, of course, cannot afford to lose markets.

Vladimir Putin: We'll definitely look at it again.

Sergei Mironov: Regarding corruption, we've noticed that when you met with members of the party which you lead – United Russia – you said to them: consider voluntarily submitting an expense statement. As I understand it, your suggestion did not meet with much enthusiasm. But we believe that in fact it is absolutely the right approach, and instead of being voluntary, we propose to make it mandatory. We are realists; we understand that if every official submits expense statements now, it would be a huge amount of work. We have, relatively speaking, 83 constituent entities, we have 83 governors and each of them has five or six deputies. We have police chiefs, we have regional prosecutors. We have State Duma deputies, Federation Council members and cabinet members. This is the circle of officials who, in our view, should be required to submit expense statements. To keep things clear – income tax returns and expense statements are separate. This is the first proposal – to make it a requirement.

The second proposal concerns income statements. Under the law, government officials are now required to submit income statements for themselves, their spouses and for some reason, their minor-age children. The proposal of our party, A Just Russia, is to expand the circle of close relatives. We propose that the duty of any state official is to file a statement for his wife and all immediate family members, which according to our law – the Family Code – are adult children, parents, brothers and sisters. Then we could see at once what someone has actually recorded, because all of these expenses and, frankly, the poverty of some Russian officials, when you read their official statements... As a rule, they all have very talented wives making very good money... And if we look at their other relatives, it turns out that they also have very talented family members...

And finally, the last thing, which I will not be shy about, is a radical proposal, and many say it already reeks of a repressive regime. But in view of the lawlessness we have seen, in terms of corruption risk, we believe that you need to carefully look at this proposal. This is the confiscation of property from corrupt officials and their families. And this would be imperative – if officials get caught committing unseemly deeds like accepting bribes, then confiscate all their property and force the relatives to prove that this property was acquired legally. If they prove it – the property will be returned to them, and if they do not – it will remain in the state treasury.

Vladimir Putin: In other words, you're proposing cancelling the presumption of innocence?

Sergei Mironov: We propose cancelling the presumption of innocence for officials, given the enormous corruption in our country. Make it an exception, perhaps a temporary measure for a certain number of years, because what is happening in Russia with corruption, of course... is not by chance. Notice that three of the four issues are purely social. This is directly concerned, shall we say, with family income, and the family budget. This problem seemingly does not directly concern the public, but as they say, it can “get to” anyone and everyone can see it because of this, too many problems are not resolved in the courts, issues affecting the normal functions of small and medium-sized businesses are unresolved, as are issues of obtaining services guaranteed by law such as the very same health care services, and much more. And so it is not a coincidence that people are adamant that we need to clean things up specifically in the campaign against corruption.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, I understand. But we need to clarify this confiscation idea. Confiscation through the courts, through court rulings?

Sergei Mironov: Of course.

Vladimir Putin: And whose property would be confiscated – the one who is found guilty of corruption by the court?

Sergei Mironov: Yes, the defendant who is guilty of corruption.

Vladimir Putin: In other words, simply introduce another sanction – that of confiscation of property?

Sergei Mironov: Confiscation of property.

Vladimir Putin: Some articles of the law already have this, I believe…

Sergei Mironov: Somewhere in there, but these are practically not enforced. Please note that one of our proposals is to oblige officials to declare income of family members and close relatives. And then we raise the issue in a stricter way – this is the precedent in some countries, such as Singapore, where this norm in his time has been implemented – the confiscation of property from officials and their families. And then – a reverse procedure. That is already the duty of relatives and the family to show that, for example, dachas, cars, airplanes, helicopters were purchased for legitimate money that they...

Nikolai Levichev: It doesn't have to be everything, but some part of it…

Vladimir Putin: Let's see…

Sergei Mironov: And so I ask Mr Levichev to discuss the other two issues.

Nikolai Levichev: Mr Putin, as you might imagine, our party always has a lot of questions both during your speech and during the government members’ reports. We are the only party that is trying to offer an alternative budget, at least regarding the basic parameters. Of course, we are able to evaluate the efforts of the government, which is trying to keep its social obligations in a period of crisis. In general, I would say that among the top leadership of the country, you are probably more of a social democrat than anyone else. Anyway, this is the impression I sometimes get. In not anticipating the questions that we will more carefully formulate and ask you after your speech, I would like to describe those social attitudes that are most prompted by the government's recent actions.

It seems to me that people are very concerned about the developing and perhaps even expanding imbalances. First, the disparity in wages. Somehow it has not come about in Russia that increased professionalism is increasingly valued. Yes, decisions are made on the indexation of wages, but to date, say, professors' wages are less than those of secretaries at state corporations, not to mention cleaning ladies, but that's the approximate level. Therefore, in general, I hope the government takes some specific steps to ensure that legitimate professional work is more highly valued.

Vladimir Putin: A couple of days ago, we talked with some analysts about introducing criteria for the valuation of labour resources. We had all but abandoned this endeavour.

Nikolai Levichev: I would like to hear about and discuss the measures that you suggest. And the second, literal disconnect today is the imbalance in regional development. Therefore, we would like to hear in more detail how plans could be implemented to create large investment projects in each region which would, along with job creation, reflect the competitive advantages of each region. Regional disparity is our great misfortune, something which could ultimately lead to a social, well, if not an upheaval, then, in any case, civil unrest.

While we're on the subject of what concerns people... Of course, everyone understands that an increase in utility rates ultimately depends on an increase in natural monopoly costs. We know about the latest proposals from the Regional Development and Economic Development Ministries to set a 15% limit for energy resource suppliers. But on March 10, we introduced a bill in the State Duma based on the state regulation of rates for natural monopolies, which lists the cases in which the state, in our view, could regulate prices, tariffs and rates, and establish principles to regulate products for industrial purposes, consumer goods and services.

We propose to annually exercise state regulation of tariffs for each fiscal year before the state budget is approved in accordance with the planned inflation index. Today it is still 6.5%, so our economic analysts believe that the main driver of inflation in our economy is not increased government spending, not increased wages, not an increase in the money supply, but namely, tariff increases, which affect the entire chain. As a minimum, we would like to have our bill discussed as it should be. Here I appeal to you not as the prime minister, but as the chairman of the party, which has a parliamentary majority, which, among other things, determines the regulations for the State Duma and the procedure for passing bills – in order for this bill not to be diluted. Let them criticise it, let them debate it, but let it be public, open and thoughtfully reasoned.

Mr Mironov has already mentioned – I'll come right out and say it – the commercialisation of education, which has resulted in people today feeling that they are deprived of life’s prospects, and the country is losing its chances for global leadership. This is a current theme today. You know – it's the “open letter” addressed to you and the President. We conduct weekly “round tables” and meet with representatives of different social communities.

We argue that innovations that are being implemented administratively in the education system itself are not justified and are causing a wave of horror and outrage – I'm not exaggerating – especially in the education community. This concerns the quality of education. This is a discussion about standards, which, in general, are imposed on society, although experts say that not enough work has been done on this to warrant all the fuss. And, of course, people are concerned about the issue of access to education – this is a very sore point. In the general educational environment and in the environment of social services, the principle of moving to per capita funding is a time bomb. The most shocking examples – there are even television programmes about this – are where guardianship institutions and authorities are beginning to fight for the number of...

Sergei Mironov: …taking children away from families…

Nikolai Levichev: Yes. Instead of placing children in foster families, they take children from their parents under different pretexts and fill orphanages. It's gotten to the point – there are such instances – that normal children are recorded as being oligophrenic in order to ensure an agency's budgeting. We urge the government to critically review the situation. We believe that the education system should not be in competition for students. Competition can be for teachers with high qualifications. We can agree with this, but when steps are taken to ensure that parents choose where to send their child, then we’ll have to close the small rural schools.

Here is a shining example. Mr Mironov, will you talk about it, or shall I mention it? On Mr Mironov's blog, one of his friends wrote an impression of his visit to Norway, where a small village separated by a mountain range from the regional centre has about 30 families in it, with 17 children attending school. Because the family did not want to send their children to boarding schools, a tunnel was bored through the rock and a road was built.

Sergei Mironov: The fact is that during the winter, they would have had to transport children on a mountain road. That's a risk, so they bored a 2.5-kilometre long tunnel. This is fantastic, of course. They went for it. By all indications, this village should have been closed. But they wanted to live there and the state met them halfway. Of course, this is one example, but it illustrates a completely different approach.

Nikolai Levichev: I, for example, have repeatedly tried suggest such ideas to ministry officials. It is clear that it is difficult to give a quality education in an all-but-abandoned village school, but nobody, in my opinion, has studied what's better in economic terms – running a school bus over our potholes to transport children, thereby rankling them, or focusing on remote education, which is very advanced today around the world and here in Russia. Even just a little bit – there could be one or more specialists on general subjects in the school, but there could be technicians, trainers for children to receive a body of knowledge on each subject with remote education. It is quite possible to do this. But we simply haven't even gotten started on it, although the same Modern Academy of Humanities is among the world's leaders in the field of remote education.

Vladimir Putin: Now such methods are being used ever more widely.

Nikolai Levichev: I will not hide that our group has drafted a large number of amendments to the bill on education, which will be submitted. We hope that they will be carefully considered. Among them, in particular, are our long-standing proposals for budget allocations to ensure that every school teacher has a laptop ...

Vladimir Putin: Budget allocations from where? The federal budget?