She's coming back

Vladimir Putin needed Tatyana Paramonova

After a little more than 20 days, the former first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Tatyana Paramonova, will return to a leadership position in the banking system. Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin appointed her as his representative on the National Banking Council (NBC). Now the powers of the head of the Central Bank and deputy chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine Sergei Ignatiev are not enough to rid himself of the need to communicate with an “inconvenient” colleague. The head of the Central Bank can be consoled by the fact that after the election of a new president, his representatives may also change, and work at the NBS is not equivalent to a permanent position at the Central Bank. By the way, it does not involve payment.

According to the law “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation,” the NBS consists of 12 people, two of them must represent the Federation Council, three each must represent the State Duma, the government and the president. The NBS necessarily includes the Chairman of the Central Bank. Only the body that appointed him there can recall its representative from the NBS. Consequently, Tatyana Paramonova will remain at the NBS as long as the president wishes. This is significant, especially given the long-standing misunderstanding between Ms. Paramonova and the Central Bank Chairman, which ultimately resulted in her job being cut.

Before the appointment of Ms. Paramonova, the president was represented on the National Banking Council by his assistant Igor Shuvalov, the head of the presidential expert department Arkady Dvorkovich, and the presidential adviser on economic issues Andrei Illarionov. Mr. Illarionov said goodbye to the president with a scandal at the end of December 2005 , after which, according to colleagues at the NBS, he stopped attending its meetings. “But no one has seen the official document on the recall of Illarionov from the NBS,” noted Pavel Medvedev, a member of the NBS, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Banking Committee.

According to Vremya Novostei, the initiative to appoint Ms. Paramonova belongs to her new colleagues - the president's representatives in the NBS. The newspaper's Kremlin source characterizes her as a highly qualified specialist with extensive experience. Nevertheless, they were looking for a replacement for Andrei Illarionov throughout last year and almost all of this year. In the spring of 2006, Oleg Vyugin, then still the head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets, was nominated for this position, but the appointment never took place.

Perhaps the search for Illarionov’s successor at the NBS would have dragged on until the election of a new president had it not been for the very appropriate resignation of Ms. Paramonova. Apparently, they decided to ignore possible disagreements between Ms. Paramonova and Mr. Ignatiev .

The Central Bank does not comment on the new appointment of Ms. Paramonova, but NBS members from among the deputies approved the idea. “With Paramonova’s arrival at NBS, the discussion will intensify. She is a professional, and now, in my opinion, when she sees the situation from the outside (not working at the Central Bank - Ed. ), she will be bolder. “Criticism is always useful,” Anatoly Aksakov, deputy chairman of the State Duma banking committee and member of the NBS, told Interfax.

Market participants and Ms. Paramonova’s colleagues did not dare to make assumptions about what orders of the president his new representative at the NBS would carry out, but, in their opinion, her experience and connections in international organizations should not be neglected. “Today, economic conditions have been created so that the Russian ruble can be considered from the point of view of an investment instrument and become truly convertible. It is unclear when this fact will happen legally, but as a specialist who could resolve this issue with international organizations, Tatyana Paramonova is the best candidate,” says Alexey Terekhov, vice-president of the FBK audit and consulting group. “From the experience of communicating with her, knowing the level of issues discussed by her, I can say that this work is very interesting to her, she is genuinely concerned about how Russia looks in the eyes of international financial circles.”

A number of Vremya Novostey's interlocutors suggest that Ms. Paramonova will work not only at NBS. Since membership in the NBS does not imply remuneration, she can also obtain a full-time position in any state-owned company. It is known that at the time of her resignation, a rumor about her intention to work as an adviser to the head of Russian Railways was actively discussed. But other options are also possible. “The presidential representative in the NBS is not obliged to hold any positions. He may even be unemployed; the law does not limit in any way who exactly to appoint,” noted NBS member Pavel Medvedev. He draws attention to the fact that this is not the last change in the composition of the NBS. The representative from the Federation Council, Sergei Vasiliev, apparently will not come to the next meeting of the council. He recently became a member of the board of Vnesheconombank and left the upper house of parliament - according to the law, only deputies and senators can be representatives of the NBS from the State Duma and the Federation Council. And the government representative in the NBS, German Gref, who, as is known, has ceased to be the Minister of Economic Development, can retain his post in the NBS if the government wants it.

Elena KHUTORNYKH, Andrey DENISOV