The following issues are scheduled for discussion:
1. Draft state programme The National Space Activity
The programme sets the goals and the tasks for developing space activities and the space rocket industry until 2020, as well as the target indicators and indices for its implementation. The programme also contains resource indices designed to forecast the federal budget spending on developing space activities over the planning periods and is directed at ensuring that the goals and the priorities of Russia's socio-economic development are met, as reflected in The fundamental principles of Russia's policy in space activity up to 2020 and beyond.
2. Draft federal law On Amateur Fishing
The draft law legalises citizens' right to engage in free and gratuitous amateur fishing on common-use bodies of water, and to engage in amateur fishing under a personal fishing licence in order to harvest (fish) aquatic biological resources, including valuable and especially valuable species, on a natural body of water (or a part thereof), as well as under paid service contracts for the purpose of maintaining recreational fishing.
3. Draft federal law On Amending Article 19 of the Federal Law On Fisheries and the Preservation of Aquatic Biological Resources
The Federal Law On Fisheries and the Preservation of Aquatic Biological Resources stipulates that the selling of aquatic biological resources harvested through the use of industrial fishing methods and of fish and other products produced on their basis can take place on commodity exchanges according to the procedure established by the Government.
The federal executive authorities have deemed as inexpedient the development of a Government act instituting a procedure for selling on commodity exchanges aquatic biological resources and fish and other products produced on their basis, as fishery organisations have the right, not the duty, to sell their products on these commodity exchanges based on the Federal Law On Commodity Exchanges and Commodity-Exchange Trading and, as of January 1, 2013, at organised auctions based on the Federal Law On Organised Trading.
In this regard, the Government has instructed the Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo) in conjunction with the relative federal executive authorities to draft and to submit to the Government an appropriate draft federal law.
Given the above, the submitted draft law provides for the deletion from Part 35 of Article 19 of the Federal Law On Fisheries of the words “in cases and in accordance with the procedure established by the Government of the Russian Federation”.
4. On the draft federal law On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Upgrading of the Procedure for Alienating Real Estate Owned by the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation or by Municipal Entities and Leased by Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses
The draft law suggests considerably increasing the number of premises redeemed by small- and medium-sized businesses, including by virtue of cutting the lists of property owned by the constituent entities and the lists of municipal property that are compiled for the purpose of renting out this property exclusively to small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as upgrading the redemption terms.
The proposals will be implemented by introducing amendments to Federal Law No 159-FZ dated July 22, 2008 On the Peculiarities of the Alienation of Real Estate Owned by the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation or By the Municipal Entities and Leased by Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses and On the Introduction of Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation, related to the following:
- lifting restrictions on the maximal size of the leased premises to facilitate the exercise of the priority redemption right;
- granting the right to the priority redemption of premises leased by small- and medium-sized businesses for no less than two years as at September 1, 2012;
- legalising the minimum term of payment in instalments for the cost of property (three years) and specifying the “payment in instalments” term;
- suspending the term fixed for the signing of a purchase and sales contract in respect to a premise if a small- or medium-sized business disputes the accuracy of the reported market value of the concerned property until the court ruling comes into force;
- granting to small- and medium-sized businesses that have leased premises in good faith for over five years as of September 1, 2012 the right to give a notice on the redemption of the leased premises if the property has been included in property lists for no less than five years;
- granting the right to apply again for the inclusion of premises in the lists of property in connection with the changed circumstances to small- and medium-sized businesses whose bids to redeem the leased premises have been turned down due to existing restrictions regarding the area of the premises;
- extending until July 1, 2015 the term of Federal Law No 159-FZ dated July 22, 2008, which gives small- and medium-sized businesses better chances to use the newly established rules.
Additionally, the draft law suggests introducing amendments to Federal Law No 209-FZ dated July 24, 2007 On the Development of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship in the Russian Federation, with regard to the following:
- expanding the list of infrastructure facilities necessary for supporting small- and medium-sized businesses by including the infrastructure facilities ensuring assistance to small innovation companies;
- granting to the Government, the authorities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and local government bodies the right to issue legislative acts on property support for small- and medium-sized businesses;
- granting to the federal executive authorities, the authorities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and municipal authorities the right to establish lease privileges for small- and medium-sized businesses engaging not only in socially significant activities, but also in other prioritised activities.
The draft law also suggests introducing changes to Federal Law No 135-FZ dated July 26, 2006 On Protection of Competition. These changes will make it possible to expand the right to sign all lease contracts for state-owned or municipal property, signed with small- and medium-sized businesses for a new term without holding tenders or auctions, as opposed to only those signed before July 1, 2008. This approach will provide further guarantees of stability to small- and medium-sized businesses.
5. On the draft federal law On Introducing Changes to the Federal Law On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation with Regard to Upgrading the Procedure for Hiring a Foreign Workforce
The draft law suggests introducing changes to the Federal Law On the Legal Status of Foreign Workers in the Russian Federation, forbidding employers and contractors to hire foreign workers as highly skilled sales personnel serving customers in consumer retail trade (including pharmaceutical goods) regardless of the range of the goods sold, the sales premises, and the types of services, with the exception of the managers and the coordinators of trade-related activities.
The draft law also bans quotas for highly skilled foreign specialists and members of their families on invitation to the Russian Federation for work purposes, quotas on work permits for foreign citizens, and the admissible share of foreign workers used in different sectors of the economy by economic entities operating in one or several constituent entities of the Russian Federation and all over the Russian Federation.
To upgrade the procedure for hiring foreign citizens in the Russian Federation, the draft law will invest a Government-authorised federal executive agency with the right to impose the rules for quoting the invitations to be issued to foreign citizens to come and work in the Russian Federation, to distribute the quota among the constituent entities, to increase or to reduce its size, and to establish a reserve of the quota, to determine the need for foreign workers, and to form the quotas for issuing work permits to foreign citizens.
6. Amount of state securities issue in 2013
The draft Government directive establishes a general limit on state securities emissions, the nominal value of which is indicated in the Russian currency and in foreign currencies.
In keeping with the Budget Code, limits on state securities emissions at par value are imposed by the Government in accordance with the upper limit of the state debt as established by the federal law on the budget for the following financial year and the planned period.
7. Draft federal law On the Ratification of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Austrian Republic on the Transfer of the Esterhazy Book Collection to the Austrian Republic
The draft law envisages the ratification of the agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Austrian Republic on the Transfer of the Esterházy Book Collection to the Austrian Republic, which was signed in Moscow on September 21, 2012.
The book collection of the Austrian Esterházy princes was brought from Austria to the Soviet Union in 1945 by a Red Army unit. The first eight books were handed over to the Rudomino All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature in August 1949. In 1952, the Soviet Foreign Ministry contributed another 700 books to the library, together with small quantities coming from the Institute of Foreign Relations and the Central Naval Library. The contributions were entered on the library’s perpetual records and categorised as federal property.
The collection contains unique editions on theology, astronomy, history, philosophy, medicine, the natural sciences, art, law, and linguistics in English, Aramaic, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Old Greek, Hebrew, and other languages, dating back to the 15th-18th centuries.
There are 954 books from the collection in the Rudomino All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature's rare book fund and 23 book in the State Public Historical Library of Russia. There are 977 depository items in all.
The agreement's legal basis is the State Treaty for the Re-Establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria (Vienna, May 15, 1955. In Article 27, the Allied and the United Powers (the Soviet Union, the UK, the United States, and France) declared their intention to return Austrian property and expressed their readiness to sign an agreement with the Government of Austria for this purpose.
The agreement states that Austria’s grievances in respect to Russia in connection with the books will be considered as fully and finally settled as of the signing of the final protocol. As of the signing, the Austrian side will undertake to settle grievances of any kind related to the books, which may be presented to the Russian Federation, Russian individuals, or Russian legal entities by third parties, including the Esterházy family, its heirs and legal successors.
8. Draft federal law On the Ratification of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on the Establishment and the Terms of Operation of Science and Culture Centres
Signed in Caracas on August 23, 2011, the agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on the establishment and the terms of operation of science and culture centres is aimed at creating an international legal basis for the opening and the operation on reciprocal terms of Russian and Venezuelan information and cultural centres.
Moscow
December 26, 2012
* Press releases by the Department of Press Service and Information are based on the materials submitted by the executive federal bodies for discussion by the Government meeting