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The new law on the Central Bank awaits only the presidential signature

The country's main bank will soon begin to live by different rules. Yesterday, the Duma, by 389 votes, overcame the Federation Council's veto on the updated version of the law on the Bank of Russia. Now the fate of the bill, which the Duma has been working on for two years, depends on the president. Vladimir Putin will most likely sign the document adopted by the Duma and rejected by the senators. In any case, the deputies, as deputy chairman of the budget committee Mikhail Zadornov noted in a conversation with a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper, are counting on this.

Perhaps the government, which is not interested in delaying the entry into force of the law (in particular, due to the issue of the Central Bank's withdrawal from the capital of Vneshtorgbank), will also ask for the presidential autograph, which is inevitable if it is rejected. In addition, members of the State Duma, who, as a result of months of polishing the bill, made a number of significant concessions to the cabinet, yesterday softened their position on another fundamental issue. They committed to amending the law on the Central Bank regarding the number of inspections of credit institutions. The Duma resolution even provides the exact wording of this amendment. According to it, the Central Bank receives the right to conduct a repeated inspection of a credit organization on the same issues for the same reporting period of activity by decision of the board of directors, adopted in accordance with a reasoned petition from a territorial institution of the Central Bank, in order to assess the financial condition of the credit organization.

Previously, deputies strictly insisted that the main bank could disturb commercial banks on the same issue no more than once, having, in addition, the right to conduct another control check in connection with the reorganization or liquidation of a credit organization. Dissatisfied with this decision, the government organized a Federation Council veto of the law. However, the conciliation commission of both chambers of parliament failed to reach a compromise. As Mikhail Zadornov explained to his colleagues yesterday, in addition to granting the Central Bank the right to additional inspection of commercial banks, senators categorically insisted on expanding the National Banking Council from 12 to 15 people. The Duma side of the conciliation commission refused to increase the number of members of the NBS by introducing another member of the Federation Council and two members of the board of directors of the Central Bank (not counting the head of the bank included in this body). The senators, in turn, did not want to withdraw their proposal. Therefore, deputies had to override the veto of the upper house.

Considering that the presidential side, according to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, has long lost its own interest in the law on the Central Bank (the Kremlin amendments proposing to turn the Central Bank into a state institution were rejected at an early stage of work on the bill), then, obviously, to resolve the issue, approve or reject the new version of the law on the Central Bank, the head of state will listen to the government’s recommendations. The cabinet now has almost no reasons to be dissatisfied with the law. On the one hand, the Bank of Russia will now be under closer control by the National Banking Council, on the other hand, it will retain independence in resolving operational issues. In addition, despite the attempts of deputies, the Duma as a whole not only failed to increase its influence on the Central Bank (for example, through the approval of cost estimates, the main directions of monetary policy), but, on the contrary, a number of functions, in particular the appointment of an auditor, have now been transferred to the NBS (the three Duma members delegated to this body are unlikely to act with an eye on their colleagues). Considering that in the NBS the majority is not in the legislative branch, as the deputies wanted, but in the executive branch, there is no need to worry about the decisions of this body, even if a disloyal parliament is elected.

For the Central Bank, of course, the best option would be to maintain the current law. And during his three months as head of the Bank of Russia, it seems that former First Deputy Minister of Finance Sergei Ignatiev understood this, trying to bypass the government and, with the help of senators, strengthen his position in the NBS. However, for the Central Bank, the new rules of the game, although less comfortable, are not catastrophic. The Bank of Russia ceases to be a state within a state. But, having managed to maintain operational independence, with skillful play on possible contradictions among the members of the NBS, he will be able to gain freedom of strategic decisions.

Svetlana LOLAEVA