Chubais vertical

The circle of RAO UES reformers is expanding

The reform of RAO UES of Russia, which was the object of close attention of the Duma last week, will today become the subject of discussion by the Presidium of the State Council. One of the members of the presidium, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, said yesterday in this regard: “Efforts to strengthen the political vertical should not be accompanied by the collapse of the country’s economic vertical.” In addition, yesterday twelve members of the Federation Council appealed to President Vladimir Putin with a request not to make decisions on the reform of the electric power industry without consultation with the regions and large industrial enterprises. The governors also proposed creating a special interdepartmental commission on energy security under the Security Council.

RAO UES believes that such a concentration of interest can only affect the pace of reform, but not its content. A senior company source told Vremya Novostei newspaper: “It’s almost impossible to stop us. The first stage of restructuring will be announced in the near future - a government decree is enough for this, and Mikhail Kasyanov is ready to sign it.” Since the Kremlin also admits that the issue of RAO UES was on the agenda of the State Council only as part of the “desire to ensure employment for its members,” in reality, only criticism from the Kremlin can affect the implementation of Anatoly Chubais’s plans. And here, despite the fact that the scandal that began at a government meeting has been dragging on for a week and a half, there has been no increase in clarity.

A source at RAO is convinced that the position of Andrei Illarionov is fundamentally different from the position of the chairman of the company’s board of directors and the head of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin, and flatly refuses to recognize the criticism of the presidential adviser as meaningful: “The amendments that Voloshin made are more of an editorial nature, and Anatoly Chubais is with them I completely agree. Illarionov, in principle, is against reforming anything.” According to a company representative, Chubais’ program has no other opponents: “Gref (Minister of Economic Development - Ed. ) is in favor, Adamov (Minister of Atomic Energy - Ed. ) is rather in favor, Kasyanov internally positive position.” Vladimir Putin, despite his demonstrative silence, according to the source, understands that there is no alternative to Chubais’s plans.

What prevents Anatoly Chubais from establishing a constructive dialogue with private shareholders, according to a source in the company, is their too much bias towards PR: “The questions about the redistribution of functions of the board of directors and the board of directors, which they demand to be considered at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders, are essentially correct. But what is the point of an emergency meeting if it can only be held two months before the next one? Why do you have to make a scandal out of this?” The source did not comment on the fact that last Friday representatives of private shareholders allegedly agreed with Alexander Voloshin to convene an extraordinary meeting. But, apparently, it was against the backdrop of this information that shares of RAO UES, based on the results of yesterday's trading on the RTS, rose in price by 2.2%.

Ivan GORDEEV