Stress test for regions: experts assess the new roles of deputy prime ministers

According to RIA Novosti, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has appointed the curators of the Russian federal districts at the level of deputy prime ministers, and positions have been distributed among deputy prime ministers.

Thus, Victoria Abramchenko will become the curator of the Siberian Federal District and will be able to comprehensively approach the issue of maintaining the ecological balance in Siberia. "The vice-premier was born in Siberia and knows the district she will be in charge of."

Tatiana Golikova, who is now responsible for health care and education, will be in charge of the Northwestern Federal District, according to the newspaper. This is due to the fact that the production of vital vaccines and medicines is concentrated in the district, as well as large universities are located there.

Dmitry Grigorenko, who oversees the work of the Ministry of Finance in the government, will be responsible for the Central Federal District. This appointment is associated with the fact that the Central Federal District is one of the key sources of federal budget revenues. Yuri Trutnev will remain the curator of the Far East. Previously, he was in charge of the North Caucasian Federal District, as well as the Arctic.

According to the publication, Deputy Prime Minister for Defense Industry Yuri Borisov will be in charge of the Urals Federal District, because the leading place in the region's economy is occupied by industrial production and the main enterprises of the military-industrial complex. Deputy Prime Minister for Fuel and Energy Complex Alexander Novak will become the curator of the North Caucasus, since "one of the key issues for this territory is the stabilization of the fuel and energy complex."

Marat Khusnullin will be responsible for the Southern Federal District, since the development of the tourist potential of the territory is associated with construction and, in particular, with the transport infrastructure.

And the curator of the Volga Federal District will be Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Economy and Innovation, because the region "accounts for about half of the volume of Russian technology exports," and also "Tatarstan will have a center for training specialists in the digital economy and information technology."

On air radio Sputnik Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the RUDN University, Candidate of Political Sciences Pavel Feldman commented on the innovation.

“I think this is a big managerial experiment. The Russian government has always been flexible in its structure, it has changed. Yes, there is a risk that there will be some managerial duplication, but any experiment takes time. There is time - at least two months before the elections to the State Duma , after which the results of this interesting management scheme will be summed up.Most likely, the curators appointed in the regions will not be responsible for all the questions, but for those target areas that are within their competence. Apparently, very serious money will go through the deputy prime ministers - curators for the implementation of these profile areas, possibly within the framework of national projects, "said Pavel Feldman.

Other experts were quite critical of these appointments. For example, political analyst Aleksey Mineev believes that “fixing Mishustin's“ oversight ”by the Deputy Prime Ministers of the Government for the federal districts is nothing, because there already are / were“ supervising ”presidential envoys. On the example of Trutnev, plenipotentiary representative in the Far Eastern Federal District, who combines a position with the position of Deputy Prime Minister of the Government, even if there is a state program for the advanced development of the Far East, there is no effect ... "

Another political scientist, Abbas Gallyamov, believes that the result of the reform will be another "administrative ugliness", which, however, will not frighten anyone in Russia:

“The bureaucrat is so arranged that if he is given official responsibility for something, then he will do exactly that. And he will score on everything else.

Recently, Putin announced that he would distribute the Russian regions among the members of the government so that they would oversee them. Today Mishustin signed a corresponding order.

Now, for example, Golikova - the one who is responsible for healthcare and education in the government - will oversee the regions of the Northwestern Federal District, and Deputy Prime Minister Khusnullin, who is responsible for the construction, will take care of the Southern Federal District. And so on.

What will we get as a result of such a strange crossing of the principles of sectoral and territorial supervision? And the fact that on issues supervised by Golikova, representatives of districts other than the Northwestern Federal District will not have to interfere with her at all. She will deal with them on a leftover principle. In this sense, teachers and doctors from the regions of the Northwest were in a clear advantage. But from now on, local builders will have much more difficult time. It will not be easy for them to get the attention of a specialized deputy prime minister now. He has the Southern Federal District, for which he is officially responsible, and let the petitioners from other federal districts go to their curators.

In general, if this scheme lasts for some more or less long time, then in Russia there will be regional specialization. In the Northwestern Federal District they will treat and teach; to build in the Southern Federal District, and in the Volga Federal District, for example, everyone will have to deal with the development of digital technologies, because Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko, who is in charge of this area, will now be responsible for the Volga region.

The point is that nothing arises from nothing, everything is always done at the expense of something. Priority projects - at the expense of non-priority projects; supervised directions - at the expense of non-supervised ones.

This is obvious to anyone who is friendly with common sense, but the Russian authorities are obviously not one of them. In fact, of course, and they understand all this, they simply cannot do it any other way. They are now facing an extremely difficult task - to demonstrate to a society requiring changes at least some semblance of reforms, without changing anything in reality. The president is in a conservative mood, for him the main thing is stability. The redistribution of "supervision" in this situation is the only instrument of action available to the apparatus.

The result, of course, will be administrative ugliness, but who and when in Russia was it scared ... "

Political scientist Dmitry Mikhailichenko and economist Alexander Bavrin called the deputy prime ministers acting in their new capacity "curators of budget flows":

“This decision is a further strengthening of over-centralization.

All the money is concentrated with the government, and the possibilities of the regions to earn money on their own and attract investments due to the covid crisis and the geopolitical situation are becoming more and more elusive.

The etatist (state-owned) economy in Keynesian form is in the interests of the kings of the state order, whose proteges many deputy prime ministers are.

Federal elites do not want to share resources with regional actors and governors. Accordingly, control over the distribution of funds is being strengthened. This is not about transparency and efficiency, this is about over-centralization and strengthening of our own apparatus positions.

The implementation of infrastructure and national projects in the regions is becoming even more strictly controlled by the government. This approach is based on the role model of Deputy Prime Minister Yu. Trutnev, who is responsible for everything in the Far East and has a very serious amount of authority.

Now deputy prime ministers get a chance to become masters of the regions that are part of their federal district. However, the hardware weight of some deputy prime ministers is insufficient to implement this. Conflicts and rotation in the government are possible here, but the structure being built is of a long-term nature.

The decision to appoint D. Chernyshenko and not M. Khusnullin as curator of the Volga Federal District seems to be correct. The Tatarstan elites should not have been too strong, which, if M. Khusnullin were appointed, would acquire additional instruments of influence on the neighboring regions of the Volga Federal District (Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mordovia, etc.). Chernyshenko will be equally removed from all governors of the Volga Federal District..."

And political scientist Roman Alekhin found a "rational grain" in these appointments:

“It is quite expected that the districts will receive a“ tilt towards specialization ”of a new curator from the Government. At the same time, the deputy prime ministers were selected in such a way as to "localize" key problems on the ground (the Caucasus - problems with stabilizing the energy complex, the South - construction chaos, the Urals - the required industrial breakthrough).

At the same time, the new function of deputy prime ministers as “mentors” hurts the authority of the presidential envoys. In fact, the plenipotentiaries are losing control over the implementation of the executive part of the subjects' work. Moreover, the appointment of new supervisors can become a trigger for personnel reshuffles of senior officials in the regions. The appearance of deputy prime ministers in the districts will soon become a stress test for the established regional policy in the relationship between the federal center and the region..."