Putin is preparing for the session
He passed the test to Seleznev
On Saturday, Vladimir Putin met in the Kremlin with State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev. Judging by the fact that the speaker was temporarily recalled from vacation for this conversation, the president is seriously concerned about the problem of continuing constructive cooperation with the deputies. After all, in the fall the Duma will have to consider a whole series of documents important for the Kremlin, the attitude towards which among parliamentarians is still far from unambiguous.
Seleznev went to the meeting with the president directly from the White Nights sanatorium near St. Petersburg, where he is spending his vacation. The speaker reacted with understanding to the need to interrupt his well-deserved rest for the sake of a conversation with the head of state: “Before the president’s vacation, it was necessary to stipulate where the autumn session of the State Duma would begin.”
Judging by the results of Saturday's conversation, this session will begin almost as combatively as the previous one ended. Let us recall that the deputies marked the last month of the spring session with hard work, adopting three bills from the presidential package on government reform and four chapters of the second part of the Tax Code. And the Kremlin now sincerely hopes that the Duma’s labor impulse will not dry up in the fall, when a new batch of fateful bills will be submitted to parliamentarians for consideration.
Firstly, this is the draft budget for 2001, developed taking into account the already approved tax innovations. Putin promised Seleznev that the government would submit the draft budget in a timely manner. The speaker responded by assuring that the Duma's budget committee is already ready to consider it and will do so as soon as the document reaches the lower house.
Secondly, in the fall the Duma will have to consider the draft law “On the Constitutional Assembly”. In accordance with the Constitution, it is this body that has the authority to amend the first and second chapters of the Basic Law (“Fundamentals of the Constitutional System” and “Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen”). And since, after the reform of the Federation Council, the topic of changing the Constitution has become more than popular among Russian politicians, discussions around this bill promise to be no less heated than the June debate about the fate of the “presidential package.”
Finally, as early as September, the Duma may take up the draft Land Code. This document was on the agenda of the lower house back in the spring, but then the Kremlin considered that the Duma was not ready to discuss it. Now both the left and the right demand a speedy review of the Land Code. But since the president is unable to satisfy the sometimes diametrically opposed wishes of both sides, he will have to choose whose support to sacrifice. And Putin began preparing for this difficult choice without waiting for the end of the Duma vacation.
DMITRY Kommersant-KAMYSHEV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 149 dated 08/15/2000, p. 2

Authors:

Dmitry Kamyshev