Mikhail Mishustin meets with Federation Council members

The participants discussed various aspects of cooperation between the Government and the Federation Council during the legislative process.

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks

Remarks by Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko

Excerpt from the transcript:

Mikhail Mishustin: Ms Matviyenko, colleagues,

I am pleased to welcome the Federation Council representatives at the Government House.

Following tradition, we meet in the run-up to International Day of Parliamentarism, which will be marked tomorrow.

It was you, Ms Matviyenko, who proposed to observe it. The idea was supported by other UN General Assembly member states.

Your professionalism and truly state-oriented approach are consistently recognised by the President.

My best wishes to you and our distinguished colleagues on the occasion of the upcoming holiday.

Let us turn to the working matters. Dialogue between the Federation Council and the Government has always been productive.

Following our previous meeting, instructions were issued to deputy prime ministers, ministers, and heads of federal executive bodies. As I have been informed by the Head of the Government Executive Office, almost all of them have been fulfilled.

I would like to thank you for the proposals that were made at that time.

It is particularly important that we have jointly established a dual system of monitoring the implementation of these instructions following our interaction, including feedback from each region of the Russian Federation which allows us to closely monitor the way new legal norms are being implemented and what else needs to be done to improve the quality of life.

The Federation Council's support for the participants of the special military operation and their families is one such example.

Ms Matviyenko, at the previous meeting you raised the issue of providing family members of wounded servicemen with free travel and accommodation to accompany the servicemen during medical rehabilitation. Now, expenses for travel, accommodation, and meals for both veterans and family members accompanying them are reimbursed from the federal budget. The necessary amendments to the country's main financial document have been adopted with your support.

In addition, the senators have created a working group on legislative support for the rights of our defenders. I would like to thank Inna Svyatenko for her contribution to setting this process up.

Last year, 30 federal laws in support of servicemen and their families were adopted, with every third initiative introduced by you, which cover a wide range of life situations from free legal help to extra leave to look after wounded servicemen.

The Government also supported the parliamentary initiative on housing for this category of citizens. Military personnel, including retirees with a child with a lifelong disability, are now entitled to receive housing on a priority basis or a matching financial payment. Regional authorities can introduce additional measures to support families of fallen servicemen.

We also approved the senators and deputies' proposal on land-related issues for SMO participants. Lease or free land use agreements concluded by our defenders will now be renewed until their return.

Border regions remain our priority as well. As instructed by the President, we have approved a programme for the comprehensive reconstruction and development of the impacted territories of the Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions through 2030. Much remains to be done to improve conditions for individuals and businesses.

I am confident that the Federation Council members will continue to respond promptly to the needs of the people living in these territories.

Another major set of legislative decisions concerns support for parents with children.

A ten-year Strategy for Family and Demographic Policy and Support for Large Families has been adopted. Many Federation Council initiatives were included in the implementation plan, including advanced training for medical workers and teachers, the creation of a one-stop-shop system in universities for information about support measures for student families and young parents, and more.

We see highly active participation of the Federation Council in preparing measures to protect the health of the younger generation.

To this end, a pilot project has been launched for labelling baby food and dairy products for children under three years old to ensure that children receive high-quality food.

On the initiative of senators, a law has been adopted to support gifted children from different regions. As a result, meals and accommodation for students of arts schools are now provided free of charge, helping talented children develop their abilities.

I would particularly like to note your proposals concerning the preservation of cultural heritage.

The Government resolution on the programme for preserving cultural heritage sites of the peoples of Russia to 2045 has entered into force. The implementation plan has also been adopted, and the list of sites to be restored as a priority was drawn up jointly with the Federation Council. This took place across almost the entire country, which is especially important in the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia.

Information about monuments requiring restoration will be posted on the unified portal as will be the materials about their condition and the progress of restoration work. This proposal also came from the Federation Council members, and we fully supported it.

Likewise, we supported another initiative to step up the restoration of cultural sites, including by reducing administrative costs. In addition, the period for surveying monuments of history and culture in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, as well as in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, has been extended for two years in order to fully prepare the necessary documentation for granting them appropriate federal or regional status.

Such activity by your chamber in preserving our spiritual heritage deserves recognition. I would like to thank Liliya Gumerova, who heads the relevant committee, for doing this.

Senators also do much for the economies of Russia's regions to promote the development of domestic manufacturing sites and strengthening Russia's technological sovereignty across a number of sectors. Thanks to the Federation Council's support, a series of laws has been adopted to assist the agro-industrial complex, including the preservation of soil fertility and the modernisation of rural infrastructure.

Together with deputies, you have provided support measures for the aquaculture. The Government has issued a positive opinion on an initiative that allows owners of fish-farming sites to protect them from poachers.

Our amendments have entered into force, and they will facilitate the involvement of agricultural land in economic use. Data on such land will be entered into the Unified State Register of Real Estate starting July 1, which will help protect the interests of agricultural enterprises and create new opportunities to expand incentives for agricultural production.

All these steps are necessary to ensure the country's food security.

Colleagues,

The President has emphasised that we, senators and the Government, must do more to involve the regions in developing new decisions to address national challenges. Of course, we must monitor their implementation. There are already significant results here. Over the past year, the Government has prepared 73 positive conclusions and official opinions on draft laws of the Federation Council, which demonstrates the high quality of your initiatives.

We have also accelerated the preparation of subordinate legislation required for the implementation of federal laws, including through digitalisation.

There are also equally important and effective formats of interaction, such as Government Hour sessions at the Federation Council and parliamentary hearings on critically important matters. I look forward to us continuing cooperation with the Federation Council across the entire spectrum of matters at hand.

Ms Matviyenko, please, you are the next speaker.

Valentina Matviyenko: Mr Mishustin,

You have already outlined all the priority areas, so I will try not to go over them again.

First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity for this one-on-one dialogue between the Federation Council members and you and members of the Government, and for our constant constructive interaction. This is not just a figure of speech. This is how it truly works.

As you earlier mentioned, following last year's meeting, almost all of your instructions have been fulfilled. We always work openly striving to do so in a highly professional and mutually respectful manner. Even if we sometimes disagree on certain issues, we eventually find effective and balanced solutions that are expected by the regions and our citizens, given the size of the tasks defined by President Putin within the framework of national development goals. I think cooperation between the parliament and the executive branch is gaining special importance and a special character.

The Federation Council regularly holds Government Hour sessions, open dialogues with members of the Government, and meetings with state secretaries, not to mention continuous legislative work.

I would like to thank Mr Grigorenko and Mr Zhivulin for coordinating this multifaceted and multi-format interaction. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the Government - those present and those absent - without exception. We always get on-point responses and constructive cooperation. Thank you. This is important.

In these challenging times, we must all work as a single and well-coordinated anti-crisis team.

Notably, the Parliament always responds promptly to all Government proposals when it comes to adopting necessary laws. The specialised Federation Council committees work through them carefully from the very early stages and submit their proposals, most of which get supported by the Government. I would once again like to thank you, Mr Mishustin, and members of the Government for this.

In addition, we saw senators step up the legislative initiative significantly, with an increase in the number of draft laws they submit. You have mentioned the core ones. But there are sometimes seemingly small issues that are still very important, yet no one wants to deal with them. We, as a chamber of the regions, take them up and work through them.

I would like to thank you and the Finance Minister, our colleague Anton Siluanov, for supporting our programme to upgrade children's summer camps to 2030. The funds are modest, as 70 regions participate in this work, but the result, Mr Mishustin, is impressive. Over four years of implementation, 336 blocks of flats and 136 infrastructure facilities have been built, including canteens, medical units, and so on. This has created additional recreational opportunities for over 200,000 children. I hope we will maintain the size of allocated funding.

Let us take another issue. Every year, a significant number of our people were poisoned by counterfeit alcohol containing methanol. We worked on this for three years overcoming numerous obstacles, lobbyists, and bureaucratic barriers. Seven federal laws have been adopted that fully establish state regulation of methanol sales. Here, Mr Manturov provided significant help. All subordinate acts have been adopted. This is a very dangerous poison, and it will no longer be freely available. Since February this year alone, the total volume of seized methanol-containing liquids has exceeded 70 tonnes. The laws have become fully operational.

Or, for example, together with the Finance Ministry, we addressed medical alcohol. We put things in order. As my colleagues reported, only last year, thanks to improved regulation in this area, budgets at all levels received more than 100 billion roubles in additional revenue. I would like to express special gratitude to Anton Siluanov for that.

There are, of course, many issues that need joint action by legislators and the Government. I will briefly touch on some of them. The senators will certainly have more to say about this.

As you mentioned, demography and support for families with children are number one issues for the country and a truly strategic endeavour.

We are fully aware of the fact that this is not a short-lived drive, but a long-term coordinated effort, and only in this way can we achieve a turnaround in birth rate growth.

The President has formulated a clear and substantive action programme built on family-centred policy as the basis for all achievements of our society.

In May, we held another meeting of the Presidential Council on Demographic and Family Policy, which serves as a platform for developing new approaches to demography.

I wish to express my gratitude to the Government for its unwavering engagement in the work of the Council, to the Ministry of Labour, and to Tatyana Golikova. We understand one another implicitly, as if finishing one another's sentences.

Owing to this collaborative effort, results are already emerging - perhaps modest, yet undeniably positive - along with favourable trends. A number of regions are recording increased momentum in birth rate dynamics. It must be acknowledged that the business community has heeded the call and joined the endeavour. The rollout of the corporate standard is expanding. We discussed this at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. To date, more than 200 enterprises - large, major ones - have introduced payments of one million roubles for each child, and this is not all; entire programmes are being launched.

The ministries, in turn, have developed their own sectoral programmes. I would like to highlight the Ministry of Transport in particular. It has undertaken systematic work.

Students have responded actively to the measures implemented by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. This is the most receptive audience - in the sense that our young people ought to start families earlier. Over the past year, the number of student families has doubled. There are now 60,000 of them, and 30,000 of these are already families with children. At the second Festival of Student Families, which we held at Moscow State University in conjunction with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the energy was remarkable; many new ideas and proposals were voiced, which we will certainly implement. However, the key point - already apparent, including to this very hall - is the inception of a shift in attitudes towards the family. That is the fundamental task.

Nonetheless, I would like to draw attention to the following point: during the Council session, a proposal was put forward to conduct an additional analysis of the existing support measures at both federal and regional levels, specifically regarding their effectiveness; that is, their actual impact on the total fertility rate. There are numerous measures in place; they are both significant and necessary, yet they must all be directed towards the primary objective. On this basis - and I have already addressed this - we must ensure that the relevant national projects, and their respective federal projects, are made more targeted. This applies, for instance, to placing greater focus on rural territories, where approximately 35 million Russian citizens reside. Rural communities have traditionally been the strongholds of large families. Here, we are working in close partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and other ministries. My thanks go to our colleague Dmitry Patrushev.

The second point concerns the procedure for parents to submit documentation to obtain state support measures. At present, many certificates and benefits can be applied for online, which is highly commendable. A dedicated section on support measures for families with children has been established on the public services portal. For this, I wish to thank the digital and social blocs of the Government. However, it is not yet possible to file a single application covering all eligible social support measures at once. Families are often required to submit dozens of separate applications, which creates inconvenience for families, particularly for large ones. Therefore, I would ask you, Mr Mishustin, that you support us in this matter and instruct the Ministry of Digital Development and the Ministry of Labour to develop a mechanism on the public services portal for the combined submission of documents for all available support measures.

Furthermore, at the May meeting of the Presidential Council, we adopted a gold standard for corporate demographic support by employers. As I have mentioned, it is being actively implemented. However, at present, it remains largely recommendatory in nature. We believe that it is essential to take into account a key demographic performance indicator when regulating state support measures for major market participants. For example, in directives for state corporations, in the framework of selecting projects for lending, and in other forms of support provided by development institutions. Moreover, we believe that leading digital platforms must be engaged in the demographic agenda.

They could, for instance, provide discounts to large families, offer more favourable commissions for the sale of children's goods and services, and promote socially oriented demographic advertising on their platforms, and so forth.

Naturally, Mr Mishustin, it is essential that the word "demography" is heard from you - as Prime Minister - at every strategic session and every meeting, for both the authorities and the business community take their cue from the stance of the head of Government.

You have already addressed the vitally important subject of support for participants in the special military operation and their families. I will touch upon a single issue: support for the heroes - the participants in the special military operation. Foremost among these issues is the employment of our veterans.

Work is under way in all constituent entities. Regional governors are actively involved in these efforts. At the same time, the relevant working group of the Federation Council has begun developing a corporate standard for the adaptation of participants in the special military operation. We describe it as a comprehensive set of support measures. I will not elaborate on its content. I would simply note that we have the support of the Ministry of Labour, the Federal Agency for Technical Regulations and Metrology, businesses both large and small, the expert and scientific communities, and the participants in the special military operation themselves.

As the chamber representing the regions, we pay especially close attention to the issue of balanced budgets for the constituent entities of the Federation. Here, too, we are in constant contact with the Ministry of Finance. We discussed this subject with you earlier today.

Recently, we approved an important Government bill introduced by the President which provides for extending the repayment deadline for part of the debt on budget loans from 2025 to 2030. This is vital support for the regions.

At the same time, we are concerned by the emerging growth in the commercial debt of the constituent entities of the Federation. Naturally, it is always preferable - as we all understand - to meet the genuine needs of the regions with budget loans. However, in those cases where this proves impossible, it is important at least to prevent excessive overpayment of interest. To be candid, regions and municipalities are borrowing at higher rates than the Ministry of Finance. Repayment from regional budgets is invariably guaranteed; the risks are lower here than, for instance, when lending to businesses.

Perhaps it is worth considering a centralised borrowing mechanism for the regions at rates commensurate with those available to the federal centre. This would enable the constituent entities to save on interest payments, and the Ministry of Finance would acquire an additional mechanism for overseeing commercial borrowing - to be resorted to only in the most extreme and genuinely justified circumstances. I will refrain from giving examples, but there are numerous regions where the budgetary situation is a cause for concern. The Ministry of Finance is aware of this. We must fine-tune regional budgets on a case-by-case basis in order to avert any deterioration of the situation.

More to be posted soon…