They do not object to the redrawing of the capital region

As Kommersant learned, all municipalities of the Moscow region that will be included in the capital have already approved the upcoming redrawing of territories. Now the decision to change the borders must be formalized by the regional authorities, after which it will be approved by the Federation Council. Legally, the expansion of Moscow should be formalized by the end of the year.

Almost all municipalities that will be affected by the expansion of Moscow have already agreed to join the city. A source in the capital’s mayor’s office told Kommersant about this, noting that legally the process of Moscow’s expansion should be completed by the end of this year. The fact that the formal procedures should be completed before January 1 was confirmed to Kommersant by the press secretary of Governor Gromov, Andrei Barkovsky. As Mr. Barkovsky explained, since the decision to redraw territories is made without holding a referendum, it was decided to take into account the opinion of municipalities, and, according to his information, they agree to change the boundaries.

“The procedure that is underway should end with the signing of an agreement by the heads of the executive branch, which will then go to the Moscow City Duma and the Moscow Regional Duma,” Moscow City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov explained to Kommersant. Regional parliaments will have to adopt appropriate resolutions to ratify the agreement, after which the documents will be sent to the Federation Council, which will make the final decision on changing the borders of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

Let us note that in total an area of 160 thousand hectares will be annexed to Moscow, on which 22 municipalities are located. As Vice Mayor Andrei Sharonov previously reported, legally the expansion of the capital must be completed by January 1 (see Kommersant on October 22).

President Dmitry Medvedev proposed a radical reconsideration of the issue of Moscow's status in June of this year at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Then he stated that “the issue of expanding the borders of Moscow may be considered, that is, the creation of a capital federal district that goes beyond the traditional borders of Moscow, and with the transfer of a significant share of the administrative functions of the federal level and, accordingly, state institutions beyond these borders” (see . “Kommersant” dated June 20). To implement his idea, President Medvedev created a working group, which, in addition to Sergei Sobyanin and Boris Gromov, included a number of high-ranking officials. Among them is the head of the presidential department for domestic policy, Oleg Govorun, who was subsequently transferred to the post of plenipotentiary representative in the Central Federal District (see Kommersant on September 3 and 7). As a Kommersant source at the mayor’s office noted, the idea of creating a capital federal district has not yet received detailed development.

Maxim Ivanov

Municipalities near Moscow have become closer to Moscow