The departments that will work with Russian companies when claims are made against them abroad will be determined in the coming days, said presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov

“We expect this to happen in the coming days,” RIA Novosti quotes Peskov’s statement .

Let us recall that in accordance with the decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin on measures to protect Russia’s interests when Russian companies carry out foreign economic activities, strategic enterprises, when any demands are presented to them by authorities of foreign states, will have to coordinate their actions with departments authorized by the government. This applies to requests for information, any changes to contracts and the sale of assets.

In accordance with the decree, the government must, within a month, determine the departments with which strategic companies will have to coordinate their actions in the event of claims from abroad.

Speaking about which department will work with companies in the fuel and energy complex, Peskov said: “Theoretically, it could be one of the departments, one of the sectoral ministries.”

According to Peskov, such a decision would be quite logical. However, he suggested not to rush and “wait for the appropriate government decision.”

It is worth noting that the presidential decree appeared on September 11, shortly after the European Commission on September 4 announced the launch of an antitrust investigation into Gazprom on three possible cases of anti-competition. If the company is caught in violations, the state holding faces large fines and revision of contracts for gas supplies to European consumers.

After the decree was issued, Gazprom immediately announced that from now on all requests from foreign partners asking for discounts on gas would be sent to the authorized agency, which would decide whether this would cause economic damage to Russia or not.

As Konstantin Simonov, general director of the National Energy Security Fund, told Forbes, the main reason for the presidential decree was the European Commission’s investigation into Gazprom’s activities. According to the expert, this decree will not bring anything good either to Russia or to our strategic companies, but will only cause even more irritation in Brussels.

“Gazprom is accused of being Russia’s energy weapon, other strange epithets are attributed to it, and suddenly the state demonstratively shows that yes, Gazprom is a state, and the state will now publicly defend it with all its might,” says Simonov. “With the number of problems that we currently have, we should have acted more subtly, but the president felt that he needed to slam his fist on the table,” the expert said.

In addition, according to Simonov, “we are once again reducing the space for companies to make operational decisions.” Now companies, instead of quickly responding to the situation, will have to run to officials regarding every issue or request in court. “It will be extremely slow and ineffective,” the expert believes.

The Kremlin will quickly select departments to work with companies regarding claims abroad