Incoming Russian Leader Said to Object to Curbs on Foreign Ownership of ISPs
Text of report by liberal Russian newspaper Vremya Novostey on 17 March
[Report by Kseniya Veretennikova and Andrey Denisov: "Free access. The Duma is not going to impose restrictions on foreign companies in purchasing Russian providers"]
The amendments to the draft law on allowing foreigners access to strategic enterprises, which has given rise to many arguments, are to be modified. On the eve of their second reading (planned for 19 March), deputies will remove from the draft law a regulation relating to services in providing internet access to types of activity that are of strategic significance for the national economy. Vremya Novostey was told this by Martin Shakkum, chairman of the relevant State Duma Committee on Construction and Land Ownership. An informed source of the newspaper close to the Duma leadership claims that the regulation has had to be dropped following the intervention of Dmitriy Medvedev.
The draft law “On the procedure for making foreign investments in commercial organizations of strategic significance for the national security of the Russian Federation” received approval in its first reading in the Duma in September last year (the parliament approved it at the same time as it confirmed Viktor Zubkov’s candidacy for the post of prime minister). But during the final stages of the preparation for the second reading, the document has been subjected to substantial amendment. In particular, the list of strategic sectors in which foreign participation is effected in accordance with a more complex procedure has been augmented by the publishing and printing business (if a company is dominant in the market) and internet provision. In accordance with the draft law, if a foreign company wants to purchase more than 50 per cent of a strategically significant enterprise, it will have to apply for permission to the relevant state body for the deal to go ahead. The law does not extend to deals that have already been concluded, but if a foreign company owns more than 5 per cent of the shares in a strategic enterprise it will have to inform the authorities of this.
These amendments (they were approved by the relevant Duma committee last Thursday [13 March] immediately acquired a political resonance and triggered sharp opposition. But, various sources claim, they were submitted on the initiative of the presidential administration. It is noteworthy that it was to the Kremlin that Information and Communications Ministry head Leonid Reyman, who disagrees with the innovations, appealed. “We will be working with the presidential administration to develop a position that will make it possible to resolve the tasks that are being set in the context of this draft law while minimizing the negative consequences for the market,” he said at the end of the week. In the minister’s opinion, the new version of the draft law as it applies to internet regulation “in no way provides additional protection for the state’s interests”. “I feel that there is no benefit in any kind of restrictions. This will lead to a situation in which the internet will pull out of our country; there will be no .ru suffix but something else,” Reyman said.
Vremya Novostey’s source claims that the regulation relating to the internet triggered the disapproval of Russian President-elect Dmitriy Medvedev. And this opinion was communicated to the Duma leadership. Martin Shakkum, chairman of the relevant Duma committee, told Vremya Novostey’s correspondent yesterday: “We will remove the internet from the draft, that is true. A decision to this effect, I assume, will be made at a committee session.” Here Mr Shakkum noted that Mr Medvedev had not said anything to him personally and had not exerted any direct influence on the committee, although it is possible that he supports this idea.
Whether the “thaw” will be confined to the sphere of the internet will become clear within the next few days. In any event it cannot be ruled out that the draft law will be subjected to closer attention from the Kremlin from the viewpoint of its political appropriateness. Because the new version of the draft law is in general much more prohibitive in nature than the original that was given approval in its first reading; but then, it has been reported, it was endorsed by the Federal Security Service.
Incidentally, at the end of the week Mr Medvedev acquired a new internet news resource with the address http://rost.ru/medvedev/. The candidate’s site http://www.medvedev2008.ru has ceased operating, but the official Russian presidential web site at www.kremlin.ru will only be available to him after he has been inaugurated. For the time being, Mr Medvedev’s temporary page is “linked” to the Russian Presidential Council for the Implementation of the Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy.
Originally published by Vremya Novostey, Moscow, in Russian 17 Mar 08.
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