Medvedevs Plan for Russia
In his speech at the Krasoyarsk Economic Forum last Friday, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev outlined a liberal-style plan for future Russia. The basis of our policies will be the principle, which I consider the most important for the well-being of any country [ ] This is the principle that freedom is better than no freedom, he stressed.
–We are talking about freedom in all its meanings: about personal freedom, economic freedom, and finally, about the freedom of expression, he added.
The apparently liberal world view of Mr. Medvedev was also highlighted in other parts of the speech. Thus when determining success factors for development, he said that “the behaviour of each single person, the life style of each and every family and peoples’ freedom of expression” are vital.
In his Krasnoyarsk speech, Mr. Medvedev was also remarkably clear on a number of sensitive economic issues. For example, he strongly criticised the current heavy business engagement of the state and the cabinet ministers in Russian key companies, saying that government officials should not be in state-controlled companies’ management boards.
- It is vital to radically increase the management quality of the companies, which are controlled by the state, he said, adding that independent directors and managers should replace the state officials in the company boards.
As a follow-up of his liberal economic views, Mr. Medvedev stressed that the development of the Russian economy should not depend only on the activities of a few company giants, but also of hundreds of medium-size enterprises and tens of thousands of small enterprises.
In the speech, the presidential hopeful also reaffirmed that the fight against corruption will be on top of his agenda. A national counter-corruption programme will be elaborated and implemented he confirmed.
Commenting on the speech, Andrey Ryabov from the Gorbachev Fund says that the programme of Mr. Medvedev is based on he necessity of the freedom of man, the freedom of the press and the independence of the juridical system. All of this is the condition for the existence of a free economy, which does not develop under conditions of semi-free administrative and political forms, he says to newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Read the whole speech of Dmitrii Medvedev at Government.ru (in Russian)
