Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues and friends. I’ve invited you here rather than to my office to discuss several issues in an informal setting.

First, I’d like to say a few words about the upcoming elections to the State Duma. Please, don’t talk about the presidential election yet. It is too early to get excited on this score because we still have another year until it takes place. Everyone should do his or her job, and that’s it.

Election campaigns for the Duma are already underway. Moreover, although the elections take place in December, as we all know we’ll have to make major decisions at our congress in September.

What are these decisions? First, we’ll have to endorse a list of candidates for Duma deputies, and second we must adopt the United Russia election programme. We must do this in September. What does this mean? Today is April 15 and there is a month and a half to go before June 1. Later on we’ll have summer vacations and holidays and in September we must meet and resolve issues. It goes without saying that we must work both in September and in the summer, but we understand that summer vacations change things. Therefore, we should plan our work properly and on schedule.

Now I’d like to comment on the gist of these issues. If United Russia wants to be competitive in the political struggle with other public organisations and political parties it should create a competitive atmosphere within its own ranks. We must make sure that our party conducts a free and open but objective and meaningful discussion of the urgent national issues for the benefit of our people.

We have covered a lot of ground in the last few years but we must do much more.

Today, the Rossiya-1 television network reported on the tragic death of a man in the Altai Territory. His relatives were initially denied an ambulance because of references to alcohol abuse – which is no reason to deny someone aid – or the absence of some contract. Meanwhile, under the current legislation, emergency medical aid must be rendered to any person – even foreigners – regardless of departmental affiliation or even the property status of the medical institution. It turns out that this particular municipality received two ambulances a year ago, but none of them have been used.

I'd rather not mention such tragedies when speaking about elections, but I am forced to do so because it is only possible to suggest solutions to problems by discussing them directly and facing reality head-on. We are currently discussing a large-scale programme for modernising and developing healthcare and investing the huge sum of 460 billion roubles into it. But the fact that these two ambulances were transferred to this municipality a year ago and nonetheless left idle points to chaos and negligence in administration bodies and various departments. It means that things must be put in order there. Perhaps they don't even need the money, although they are bound to lament that it's the reason the ambulances weren't used. But this is a problem related to priorities. That is the first point.

Now, for the second point. Take kindergartens, for example. We have done a great deal to improve the demographic situation, and, thank God, the birth rate is rising and the death rate is falling. But another problem is now coming to the fore – the lack of kindergartens. Some 1,700,000 children are on waiting lists nationwide. It is difficult or even impossible to resolve such problems at the federal level because under the current law on the distribution of authority, these powers were transferred to municipalities as of January 1, 2005. However, United Russia, a party that has the controlling interest in almost all regions and municipalities can and must take responsibility. Therefore, when you start working on a list of candidates – there are about 600 people – and the party election programme, you must proceed not from general theoretical assumptions about what's best but from the concrete problems people are facing in the country, its regions, villages, and cities. In order to do so, United Russia deputies must look once again to the specific problems facing their regional municipalities. We are aware of common problems: utilities, healthcare, education, and so on, but apart from them, each region, village, and city has its own local problems.

You must analyse all these problems, compile a list of priorities, and, if need be, adjust the work of regulatory and government bodies – for instance, by adopting amendments to the current budget laws. This is the second issue I wanted to discuss with you today, but first let's finish our previous conversation.

The party's election programme is closely linked to what I've just mentioned. We must build this programme by proceeding from reality and from the people's interests. And, as I've already said, during the election campaign, we must create a competitive atmosphere accompanied by goodwill and engagement within the party ranks in order to bring out those with fresh and challenging ideas who understand these problems and are ready to resolve them.

Svetlana Orlova: And who are not indifferent.

Vladimir Putin: Absolutely. Returning to the tragic example I mentioned earlier, I'd like to remind you that voters elect municipal authorities themselves. They should be paying attention and realizing whom they are electing, but we have to help them. We must provide them with worthy candidates, redefine the problems, and suggest viable solutions.

Now I'd like to say a few words about money. We are going to submit amendments to the current budget to the State Duma. On the whole, our economy is recovering, as you already know. According to the current forecasts, our additional oil and gas revenues will reach 1,138 billion roubles in 2011. However, we must treat these additional revenues with caution, and I'd like you to adopt this attitude because otherwise we'll face other problems, such as inflation and so on. We also have an additional 320 billion roubles from industries unrelated to oil and gas. Returning to the first question about election campaigning and potential adjustments to the regional and local budgets, I'd like to inform you that the consolidated budget will receive 320 billion roubles more than we initially expected. In other words, some regions have the money, but not all of them. Some will receive less than they are due, but major hubs will be in the black (Moscow will see a surplus of 143 billion roubles, the Tyumen Region 25 billion, St Petersburg 20 billion, the Moscow Region 18 billion, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area 12 billion, Tatarstan 11 billion, Bashkortostan 9 billion, and the Sverdlovsk and Irkutsk regions 9 billion each). Let me repeat that the consolidated budget will see a surplus, and all we have to do is monitor the expenses of our colleagues in the regions and municipalities more attentively. We must look at priority interests – at the problems that people want to see resolved.

We'll now discuss our amendments in more detail. Yesterday we talked about them at the meeting of the Government Presidium, and I'd like to hear your opinion, primarily on the issues that I just mentioned. Please, go ahead.

Boris Gryzlov: Thank you. Mr Putin, I think that the March 13 Election Day has already given an impetus to the Duma election campaign. I am pleased to note that voters backed United Russia at the elections of the legislative assemblies of 12 regions. It received two percent more votes than in 2007. This means support for our course, for the government, and for United Russia. In the period between the elections, we adopted a number of laws to improve the political system. These improvements give benefits not only to our party but also oppositional parties, giving all of them equal access to the media at both federal and regional levels and the opportunity to include ten rather than three candidates on the federal lists, not to mention other concessions.

Nevertheless, we are aware that now we must consolidate our efforts. I agree with your idea – your proposal to enhance competition within the party in order to make it more competitive among other public associations and political parties. We will make broad use of primary elections. We are currently discussing potential candidates to the State Duma with the heads of our regional organisations.

We sent our deputies to the regional election campaigns this March, last October, and in March of last year. We see that by and large, our deputies achieve good results at regional elections. In other words, we stay in touch with the regions and work with them well. But some names of our deputies were at the bottom of the lists, which shows that they paid little attention to the regions.

As for potential amendments to the budget, I'd like to draw your attention to several issues, primarily preschool education and kindergartens. We've moved a great deal forward in this direction, especially over the past year – the amendments to the law have been adopted, and sanitary regulations and standards for kindergartens have been changed. But what I consider the most important is what we have accomplished at the regional party level. This applies to monitoring buildings that were originally designed as kindergartens but changed their function over the last 10 to 15 years. We have found more than 6,000 such buildings. They are now gradually being reconverted to their former status. I think this was a very important job.

We have allocated the small sum of 500 million roubles from the federal budget for the first time in order to modernise kindergartens in the regions because it is the primary responsibility of the regions and municipalities to build them. But it is possible to modernise kindergartens by using new equipment – for instance, convertible beds. In this way, the same premises can be used as bedrooms or living rooms, where children play.

This seems to be a minor task, but now kindergartens can accommodate several dozen thousand more children. Considering the modesty of this sum, we could double it this year.

Now let me speak about roads. We have earmarked 34 billion roubles in the current budget for road construction and maintenance in urban areas, regional capitals, and communal courtyards. The government understands the importance of this project, and insisted on using funds specifically for the improvement of courtyards, which was done for the first time. On April 1, the funds were disbursed in full to the regions, and the authorities should now be working on getting these courtyards in decent shape. According to the approved paperwork, there are 19,500 courtyards in Russia subject to renovation under this programme. Since we have already obtained all the regulatory paperwork and can move forward, we could have more funds allocated to their beautification.

Rural roads are a very important issue. This year, the government allocated 5 billion roubles for their construction and maintenance. There are 46,500 Russian towns and villages without paved roads. You mentioned that this number should be five times lower by 2030. That's quite a lot of money, because the 5 billion roubles allocated for this year can be put towards the construction of 500 km of paved roads, which is not a whole lot. We need to build 100,000 km of paved roads in all such towns and villages. We really need to focus on this because people in rural areas are steadily relocating to urban centres. In this regard, I'd like to cite a rather sad figure: the area of cultivated land in Russia shrank by 18 million hectares over the past 10 years, which is about the amount of virgin soil that had been developed by the Soviet Union. In other words, we've lost everything we had accomplished back then because fewer people live in rural areas now. I believe we should allocate more funds in our current budget to building rural roads and access roads to remote locations.

Vladimir Putin: We will go over the government's proposals and decide what we can support additionally, making amendments to the budget law.

I just had a thought about our preparations for the Olympic Games, which is a major nationwide project. We were all in favour of this project, and I did a great deal to make sure that the Olympics would be hosted by Russia. We have invested a lot of money into this multi-faceted project, which serves to promote a healthy lifestyle, sport, and regional development. However, the Games will eventually be over, and the infrastructure will remain. We will still have the roads, bridges, power and water supply facilities, sport facilities, and hotels. They will be there for everybody to enjoy during the coming decades, or maybe even centuries. I believe that I can draw a quite appropriate analogy to the preparations for the upcoming elections. The elections are important, and any political party entering the race should be looking for victory. However, the pre-election campaign is in no way less important and can be used to facilitate the nation's development and solve routine problems faced by the Russian people on a daily basis. In fact, if you do as I've just said, you will always have the upper hand.

Having said that, let me get back to the issue of the openness of the elections. The six hundred candidates listed on the ballots should be up for review and discussion with all voters in the regions and municipalities, not just their respective party members. Why? For the simple reason that people trust United Russia and vote for it. That means they are entitled to know who will be their representative in the parliament and how these representatives intend to solve their problems. This is very important. Public transparency is critical for attaining good results. Let me reiterate: openness is of paramount importance for setting priorities and creating solutions. I think we should help our colleagues in the regions – the central party bodies should be helping them. In order to do so, please assign specific party executives to oversee specific Russian regions. That way, we'll know who is responsible for what. We will get together once every two to three weeks to measure progress, assess interim results, and set goals for the future.