From right, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov during a Cabinet meeting in the Kremlin on Monday, March 12, 2007. Putin heads to Italy and Greece this week for a trip that includes a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and the signing of an oil pipeline agreement.
Photo: AP
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A Masterly Performance
// The Government Hits the President's Marks
In the Kremlin yesterday the Russian president held his traditional Monday meeting with the government. Having heard out the ministers, Vladimir Putin expressed hope for healthy economic patriotism among the country's consumers even while he put the latter in a difficult position, at least in the opinion of Kommersant correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov.
Members of the government flock to the Monday meetings with the president in the Kremlin as if they were attending a show. Each Monday is a new premiere, so the likelihood of improvisation is fairly high, although it is limited somewhat by the general stage plan, the number of players in attendance, and the monologues.
Before the premiere, you catch yourself feeling the same frisson – or even fever – of excitement as the ministers themselves. And, as before any premiere, the mood in the room is somehow elevated, even though the players and the audience alike are aware that the day could end in failure for any of the actors on the stage.
Yesterday's performance was preceded by a report from Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who waxed eloquent about the budget. Then, in reply to a question posed by the play's director, hero, and leading man, Vladimir Putin – "German Oskarovich, are you heading for France?" – Trade and Economic Development Minister German Gref launched into a passionate monologue: "To France! To France!" In France, Mr. Gref will once against show the world the investment opportunities available in the Russian Federation, particularly the project that involves revamping the New Holland structure in St. Petersburg to the tune of two billion euros.
Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko went into some detail about the state of the deal between Russia, Greece, and Bulgaria concerning the construction of the Burgas-Alexandropolis oil pipeline. The agreement between the three countries is due to be signed in Athens two days from now. In honor of the agreement, the Russian president will be visiting Greece and Italy today and tomorrow.
Up to this point, the resolution of the tasks facing the ministers had been accomplished via a series of utterly convincing monologues from the cast. Having given the floor to first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, the president clearly decided that the time had come for some interesting dialogues.
"Sergei Borisovich," he said to Mr. Ivanov. "Will you be holding a meeting on GLONASS today?"
Sergei Ivanov replied in the affirmative, adding after a masterful theatrical pause, "I already held it this morning."
At this point, another theatrical pause was needed. Sergei Ivanov complied, with an obvious thrill of pleasure from the implication that the hero's morning had only just begun.
"In accordance with your orders regarding the necessity of the broad commercialization of the GLONASS project (GLONASS is the Russian satellite navigation system, the equivalent of the American GPS), I held a meeting with all of the interested ministries…and with representatives of large Russian IT companies that are preparing proposals for the commercial use of GLONASS," Mr. Ivanov continued.
It took a brave man to make another pause here, and Sergei Ivanov was that man. It was left to the audience to imagine what time Sergei Ivanov's work day started. Obviously Mr. Ivanov, upon leaving the army, had carried some soldier's habits over into civilian life (Sergei Ivanov was recently promoted from defense minister to first deputy prime minister).
"At the meeting today," elaborated Mr. Ivanov, "we strictly divided up the functions that the government should perform…in particular, to pay for the maintenance of the orbiting module and the earth-based system of reference signals…and those that private enterprise can undertake."
Private enterprise was not represented at this meeting, so Sergei Ivanov took it upon himself to deliver a short monologue in its stead.
"And private enterprise is ready to distribute navigation maps and information from GLONASS directly to individual consumers," said Mr. Ivanov.
Then the first deputy prime minister described an idea that, according to him, all of the participants at that morning's meeting had been in agreement with (or at least all of those who were awake at that point):
"With regard to government buyers, and there are a fair number of them…besides the law enforcement and defense agencies, there are the Transportation Ministry, the land bureau, [agencies] that ensure people's [safety]…in other words, whatever the Emergencies Ministry needs to save people, mountain climbers in different extreme situations…"
Here Mr. Ivanov was improvising, so not too much could be expected of him.
"Here is our proposal," he finally said, have eventually decided just to spit it out without any further ado, lengthy preambles not being the fashion in the Defense Ministry. "To begin the development of the project according to your orders, government buyers will simply need to install a GLONASS/GPS receiver, like we're doing, to manage the entire system from the point of view of security and economic transparency from the moment GLONASS becomes operational, in other words, as early as the beginning of 2008, when our orbiting module will allow the signal to be broadcast throughout the territory of the Russian Federation."
Such a sustained monologue demanded an effective conclusion, and Sergei Ivanov was up to the task. He promised the attendees that tomorrow morning he will hold a meeting with the Transportation Ministry and then with Rosatom.
"Good," nodded the president. "Sergei Borisovich, you know what attention I am paying to the development of the GLONASS system…"
Here the president obviously remembered that the system doesn't exist yet.
"To the creation of this system, first of all," he said. "And I am counting on the government, including you, to pay the necessary attention to it. I think that we are justified in counting on the known healthy economic patriotism of our customers, first and foremost government buyers, of course. But I presume that in this segment of the economy we will be working under market conditions. And that the buyers will be able to choose for themselves the higher-quality service. In order to make sure that they choose GLONASS, this system must work flawlessly and better that GPS. Cheaper and better quality."
With that statement, the president put the buyers in a difficult position. On the one hand, there are supposed to display a healthy patriotism, but on the other hand they're supposed to make a conscious choice. What are they supposed to do? Split themselves in two?
In the end, the president could not avoid giving the floor to Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov, thus giving everyone the dubious pleasure of enjoying his monologue as well.
"Mikhail Yurevich, regarding camp for children, please."
Mikhail Zurabov gave an extended speech.
"Two and a half months are left until the summer health-promotion campaign for children. That isn't long" – the president's voice contained a note of strange dissatisfaction, and there was a sense that he did not believe that Mikhail Zurabov would get the job done. "Thus, we need to ensure that we are fully prepared to begin work on the campaign. And regarding the furnishing of discounted medicines to pensioners. The situation is changing, but very slowly. I request that you speed up this work, to speed it up at the regional level. You know, there are changes there…three, two, four percent increases, but that is insignificant and so far not noticeable."
At least Mr. Putin is continuing to keep Mr. Zurabov, who no longer plays a leading role in providing discounted medicines to the country's population, in shape.
Andrei Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 13, 2007
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