Forest Code Will Pass Despite Senators
The Federation Council decided yesterday not to oppose the new Forest Code and to pass it on November 24, the last possible date for it to go into effect on January 1, after speaker Sergey Mironov received an instruction from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Just yesterday, the Federation Council was determined to block the new code. Then the mood there changed. “Although passage of the code will cause social tension, changes in the forest sector have made the need for corrections critical,” chairman of the Federation Council Constitutional Legislation Committee Yury Sharandin said. Sen. Viktor Orlov put it more simply. “The scandal didn't work out,” he told Kommersant.
The Federation Council's position was set by its coordinating council, which was militant before it met. Mironov had had a meeting with Putin the day before, however, and Deputy Minister of Economic Development Andrey Sharonov. Mironov made several proposals on the new Forest Code, but the council decided to approve it and the law to bring it into force. Obviously, Mironov had received clear instructions from the president.
Mironov said yesterday that the senators concerns were centered around the lack of state financing for a number of functions after forest administrations are turned over to the regions. The Federation Council estimates that an additional 9.5 billion rubles needs to be allotted for that purpose. There are already 13 billion rubles allotted in the 2007 draft budget, of which 6 billion rubles will go to forest management bodies and 7 billion rubles to subjects of the federation, according to Vsevolod Gavrilov, deputy director of the department of property and land relations at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Only Sharandin spoke of increasing that amount yesterday, however, and Gavrilov responded only that “the point of consolidation of those funds should be concentrated in the regions.”
The new Forest Code's main opponent in the State Duma, former owner of the Arkhangelsk Pulp and Paper Mill Vladimir Krupchak, maintains that there is one more problem with it. Krupchak says that the new code requires tenders to be held for new forest rentals and current rights will be confirmed through a complex and not fully specified procedure, which cannot be completed by January 1. “When forestry administrations are liquidated, chaos will arise,” he predicted. The Economics Ministry acknowledges that the necessary documents have yet to be completed, but does serious problems in that.
The problems of forest rental will be felt mainly by the regions. Several regions, such as Komi, Karelia, Pskov, Perm and several Far Eastern regions, hold large stock packages in the local forest industries and have traditionally had close ties with the forest administrations.
Dmitry Butrin, Arina Sharipova
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 23, 2006
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