Debts must be paid

Correspondent: The government fulfilled the instructions given to it by President Putin on time - to resolve the pressing problem of external debts by mid-February. Unfortunately, it decided according to the most pessimistic scenario. The West did not listen to the arguments that paying debts to the Paris Club according to the so-called original schedule could undermine the positive beginning in the Russian economy, and insisted on its own. Now we urgently need to find funds to fill the gap in the budget of more than 6 billion dollars: 2.5 billion to pay off the debt to the Paris Club itself and 3.6 billion in return for those loans from the international financial community that they were counting on but did not receive. It is not surprising that the government is subject to severe criticism from the State Duma.

Gennady Seleznev, Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation: Are we really such stupid negotiators who at first kept silent about what awaits us when discussing the budget in the first reading, and today they push us to the wall and say: let’s sequester immediately.

Gennady Zyuganov, Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation: Unfortunately, the government is not working well. Not only is it unable to cope with its debts, but it is also unable to even heat citizens’ homes. All major income items are not held by the government. 15 people are getting fat, the rest are all poor. And they come to the Duma with proposals to take away the last money from citizens who have not yet received this money.

Gennady Raikov, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, head of the parliamentary group "People's Deputy": This debt was not included in the budget, I don’t know what the government was thinking about without pledging the debt. Or it thought of reaching an agreement with the Paris Club, but at least this debt was not included in the law.

Correspondent: This is the main reproach to Kasyanov, Kudrin and other so-called “negotiators.” Why didn’t they immediately include the debt in the budget? But the question is generally rhetorical, the answer to it was clear from the very beginning: if they had laid it down, then there would have been nothing to talk about with the West. Neither about restructuring, that is, deferment, nor about writing off, as happened with the debts of the London Club. The government was forced to swim in hydrochloric acid on this issue - what can be negotiated when the Kremlin, through the mouth of economic adviser Illarionov, referring to Putin himself, sounds truths that are in principle true, but extremely costly for the country and its people: you have to pay, this is a sign of civilization. The West, naturally, used differences in the Russian leadership to its advantage, citing the fact that Russia has earned a lot from high world prices for oil and gas. The meaning of everything that is happening is quite simple: until now, Russia has more or less regularly paid only purely Russian debts incurred during the Yeltsin era. The Soviet part was always postponed until later. In the West, there was an understanding that it was difficult for Russia, that it was necessary to carry out reforms, and they got used to this and hoped in their hearts that, just as at one time most of the debts to Poland and Bulgaria were forgiven, they would also forgive Russia. But Russia did not fit into the Western system of political and ideological norms, and they did not meet it halfway. Although they do not talk about this openly, it is no secret to anyone that the West does not want Russia to strengthen its military power at its expense and wage an internal war in Chechnya, while huge sums are stolen and floated abroad. Hence such a tough position of those who at one time, even under Gorbachev, even collected donations and organized material assistance for the people who followed the path of democratic reforms. Russia really doesn’t want to pay its Soviet debts, and President Putin said this for the first time in Austria.

Vladimir Putin: I don’t think that at one time the Russian side properly thought through all aspects of this matter when it assumed obligations to pay all Soviet debts. The question is, why should we, strictly speaking, pay for all the other republics of the former Soviet Union? But we do it, and the bill runs into tens of billions of dollars.

Correspondent: The State Duma demands a clear answer from the government: how much debt has accumulated and what the money was spent on.

Gennady Raikov: Come on, we, the deputies, are really fed up with it, as we say now, it’s fashionable to say, yes, so let’s put the documents on the table, let’s take a look.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation: Maybe the government should be given documents that we really owe to the Paris Club? There are obligations. After all, the USSR's debt was 30 billion before August 1, 1991.

Svetlana Sorokina: And now 39.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Who did Gorbachev take 70 billion from and for what? Now we owe 100 billion, the Paris Club alone owes 50!

Alexander Zhukov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Budget of the Russian Federation: I would partially agree with what was said. Most of our Soviet debt arose in the last years of Gorbachev's presidency. It is practically our debt that has grown from 30 to 80 billion dollars.

Mikhail Kasyanov, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation: So, I tell you that the amount of debt that the Russian Federation received from the Soviet Union is approximately 95-96 billion dollars, 30 √ these are only loans that the state took out, this is what is called the Paris Club today. The state gave and the state took. In addition, there were other forms in the Soviet Union, for example, Vnesheconombank was the central and only authority for foreign exchange payments. And he took out large commercial bank loans on behalf of the state, this is a bank commercial debt, which later became known as the London Club. This is a serious amount. Plus, other ministries and departments: the Ministry of Electronic Industry, the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of the Navy, the councils of ministers of the union republics had the right to borrow. They did this too.

Correspondent: So Gorbachev did not make any secret debts, as Zhirinovsky claims, several months before President Yeltsin came to power?

Mikhail Kasyanov: No, if they were secret at that time, then on January 1, 1992 they did not become secret. And all the debts are documented, all of them are accounted for.

Correspondent: Now Russians will have to pay for grain, meat, butter, and foreign shoes that were imported into the country en masse under Soviet rule. Plus about 50 billion dollars in debts incurred under Yeltsin. This year alone, Russia will have to pay a total of $14 billion in foreign debt and next year about the same. And in 2003 there was a peak in payments: 18-19 billion, and so on for at least 7 years in advance. A real debt hole, from which it will be very difficult to get out. The West, as they say, will defer it and provide loans only when things get really bad for Russia. Kasyanov has now replaced the victorious reports of last year with a more restrained tone. He draws attention to the large increase in inflation in January and February, and economic growth turns out to be not entirely real.

Mikhail Kasyanov: Economic growth created by ourselves is not 7%. We create approximately 4-4.5√5%. The addition of 2-2.5% to last year’s growth is due to the advantages that the foreign market gives us.

Correspondent: Despite all the existing difficulties, few doubt that the necessary funds will be found this year. A compromise will be reached with the Duma, although the government will try again this coming Monday to negotiate something for itself. But a precedent will be created that can put an end to all further attempts at debt restructuring. We will have to pay not only the Paris Club, but also other creditors.

Lately, a lot has been said and written about the upcoming reshuffles in the government, up to the replacement of its prime minister. Kasyanov himself is quite confident about the future and is working on changes in the structure of the government, which should be completed in April-May of this year. But if there are plans to create, as Kasyanov’s opponents demand, a strong and competent government, then disputes over debts are the most convenient reason for this. Debts have truly become a popular topic; there is nothing easier than blaming everything on the government, which, they say, is confused in this problem and has set up the president, the State Duma, millions of state employees and the entire country. But there is no confidence that other people are brilliant and will do everything right. We have already had many governments, but the debts have not gone away. Today, in any case, conditions have been created that Russia is unlikely to go bankrupt, even if it pays in full. Perhaps it is the current difficult situation that will force the Russian leadership to truly engage in the economic development of the country and take advantage of all the growth reserves. After all, what matters is not how much you pay off your debts, but how much money the country has left after that.

Vladimir Kondratyev, NTV.