Out of the box yesterday was “the governmental hour” Minister of industry and trade Denis Manturov at the Federation Council. The meeting went twice as long as the plan and ended with the proposal of Senator Andrey Kutepov to think about “conflict of interest” within the Ministry of industry and trade and in fact on the division of the Department. The incident with the desire of senators to intervene in the structure of the government is observed for the first time in many years, though hardly serious. A significant part of the questions addressed to senators yesterday, the Ministry of industry, has in the basis or erroneous information or ideological stamps.The main issue of the “government hour” in the Federation Council “About measures of support of branches of Russian industry in the changed economic environment”, where he performed Mr. Manturov, as expected, was a direct and private senators ‘ questions to the Ministry of industry and trade. In this sense, the event Denis Manturov commenced a detailed policy review of the Ministry of industry and trade in coronavirus epidemic, measures two packages to support the economy and a number of special issues related to the work of the pharmaceutical industry and production of means of individual protection, it was a standard scenario: the head of the Ministry of industry and trade has proposed five senators to make official requests to the Ministry, five members of the Federation Council, answered several questions (the status of the trade missions, the aviation industry, the industry development Fund). Before the meeting, the Ministry received 180 questions most part in advance. Most interesting was the second hour of the event, when the senators Viktor Bondarev (Kirov region) and Andrey Kutepov (Saint Petersburg) made radical proposals about the policy and even the future of the industry and trade Ministry and the head of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko called the team Denis Manturov “to be more self-critical” — in the end, the draft resolution of the Council at the hearings was sent back for revision.In itself “ideological” criticism of government departments in SF is not uncommon: as in the state Duma, the upper house of Parliament is quite common and references to the “Soviet experience” in ekonompolitike, and archaic-radical initiatives on a variety of issues. Usually, however, they are separate episodes in a smoother discussion. Denis Manturov yesterday had to be attacked simultaneously from several directions. So, Senator Bondarev, Chairman of the defense Committee of the Federation Council, whose speech began with criticism of the diversification program of the military-industrial complex (MIC), quickly reached the quite radical program: “to prohibit the admission of foreign products for the implementation of national projects” and to impose customs duties on imported high-tech products with simultaneous “abolition of export duties” on its Russian counterparts (recall that in Russia the exportduty is levied only on raw materials). “Another reserve on the way diversification is the release of defense enterprises from non-core assets,”— supplemented his thesis Mr. Bondarev did not specify how the elimination of non-core (from the point of view MIC) of assets will expand the production of non-specific (with the same point of view) products.Mr. Kutepov made even more radical, starting with the assertion that the list of strategic enterprises (1335) received the support of only 139 (according to the Ministry of industry and trade, to the benefits allowed four times as many companies). Further, the Senator suggested that the Ministry “combines more than 25 Soviet ministries. The Agency regulates and monitors all industries — from light to the aircraft industry, external trade, internal and electronic. All of this can lead to interdepartmental conflicts, because the goals and interests of Commerce and industry is different.” This further enlivened the atmosphere in the room: rumors that the opponents of the Ministry informally propose to distinguish him from the Ministry, previously circulated, and Andrei Kutepov, some sources believed possible his head. At the end of the briefing, the Senator from St. Petersburg stated that “no breakthrough” in the industry (obviously, against coronavirus pandemic), the fall of non-oil exports (in 2019 he was a record $155,1 billion) and demanded “adjustments” of the system of measures of industrial support.Completed the “government hour” more or less the conciliatory speech of the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko. In it she called on the team of Denis Manturov to the “self-criticism” and for some reason quoted in extenso reviews for departmental strategy, one of the anonymous “channels” in the Telegram (apparently, this is the first citation of this source in the upper house of Parliament) criticized the support by the Ministry of industry and trade “mythical technologies of the future” and the damage that it caused the production of automotive components in the “GAZ Group” and the St. Petersburg tractor plant (group “Kirov plant”).The most interesting developments is the first in many years, a direct attempt of the legislature to openly influence the design of the ministries — earlier this was seen in the representatives of the CPRF and LDPR in the state Duma, but not in SF. Note that in most of the presentations and questions from senators yesterday anyway used was the traditional same groups, the rhetoric of the “active industrial policy” in its most marginal versions. However, according to “Kommersant”, the White house took place in SF is not perceived as a serious challenge — stamps of the economic isolationism of the late 1990s, as similar techniques are now routinely used as a trading position in a modern target of the lobbying campaignYah.Dmitry Butrin
