Reform while it's hot

Anatoly Chubais does not expect favors from the government

In the issue of reforming the electric power industry, which the government considered on Friday, the casuistic formulation proposed by the Kremlin at the beginning of the year “to approve reforms on a market basis” again won. This time, the formal decision of the cabinet meeting that ended in scandal was to approve the plan for restructuring RAO UES of Russia “as a whole” developed by Anatoly Chubais and German Gref and give another two months “to finalize” the details. During these two months, Mr. Gref said, the government should hire a foreign consultant with experience in reforms in the electricity sector, order an independent analysis of its own plans and study the results of this analysis.

Presidential adviser Andrei Illarionov prevented unequivocal approval. Against the backdrop of general support for the “Priority Restructuring Measures” presented by German Gref, he stated: the proposed reforms do not reflect “the interests of either the state or shareholders” and are aimed at “beginning the sale of the assets of RAO UES of Russia by January 2002,” whereas complete liberalization of the market should occur no earlier than 2005.” And in general, Mr. Illarionov asked, what kind of market is this? The distribution of electricity will be handled exclusively by the management of RAO. The hottest thesis of Andrei Illarionov was that the capitalization of RAO UES had decreased from 10 billion dollars in March of this year to 4 billion at the moment, and this is a direct consequence of the emergence of plans for reforming RAO “according to Chubais.”

Everyone knows that the presidential adviser often expresses his own thoughts. But this time the question of how much Vladimir Putin agreed with his adviser did not remain unanswered for long. First, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that the head of state called him directly from Cuba and shared his negative impression of Anatoly Chubais’s plans. And then Vladimir Putin himself explained his position at a press conference in Havana: structural changes, in his words, “cannot rely only on the position of the department itself, which must be reformed; there must be the opinions of many experts, including foreign ones.” But the president would not be himself if he took a clearly defined position. Commenting on his adviser's harsh criticism of the government, he noted that the government "cannot help but be criticized," but it "must be able to work calmly." The Cabinet of Ministers, according to Vladimir Putin, “is criticized both from the right and from the left,” and this makes it possible to develop an optimal position.

Most likely, in the process of identifying the optimal position by March next year, the program will undergo significant changes. But Anatoly Chubais is confident that he is strategically right. "Brilliantly. Brilliant,” he commented on the discussion at the government meeting. - Look who our opponents are: the radical conservative Kudryavy (Viktor Kudryavy, Deputy Minister of Energy - Ed. ) and the radical liberal Illarionov. Once again I am convinced that we are on the right track.”

Confirmation of the chief power engineer’s conviction that he was right was not long in coming. Just a couple of hours later, RAO's media relations department reported: the company's board of directors, which met immediately after the cabinet meeting, approved the transformation of a number of power plants from branches of RAO UES into open joint-stock companies with 100 percent participation of RAO. The property complexes of power plants will be contributed to the authorized capital of these companies.

Thus, the separation of generating capacities into a separate business began. The fate of the nuclear power plants that are part of the Rosenergoatom concern remains unclear. The “Priority measures for restructuring the electric power industry” sent for revision envisaged the creation of up to 15 generating complexes based on thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants and nuclear power plants. Minatom has so far advocated the creation of a single generating company, which would include nine nuclear power plants. Anatoly Chubais criticized this idea because its implementation would destroy the electricity market in the center of Russia: and now the share of energy from nuclear power plants in the central regions is 70%. “They have low costs, so you get one seller with naturally reduced terms. And no market,” says the head of RAO. If, nevertheless, the Chubais-Gref option is implemented, experts in the electric power industry believe, then it is possible that Minatom will simply lose its functions.

Nikolay GORELOV, Andrey DENISOV