Muscovites did not spoil the budget issue – Picture of the day – Kommersant

The Moscow City Duma (MGD) on Wednesday adopted a law on the capital’s budget for 2023–2025 in an unprecedented accelerated format: in one day, in three readings at once, and without considering the draft in specialized commissions. The parliamentary majority suggested approving the budget even without amendments, but the opposition nevertheless made more than 20 proposals to change certain articles of the law, which, however, were rejected.

The meetings of the Moscow State Duma, where the draft city budget is discussed, have so far been one of the longest due to the large number of questions and amendments introduced by the opposition. However, in 2022 this tradition was broken: as already reported “b”On November 1, the leadership of the Moscow State Duma proposed to consider the budget in three readings at once and without amendments. This initiative, in addition to the majority represented by United Russia and the pro-mayor association My Moscow, was supported by two of the three deputies from the A Just Russia – For Truth party (SRZP).

The plenary meeting of the Moscow State Duma on November 2 at first proceeded according to the usual pattern: Elena Zyabbarova, head of the Department of Finance of the Moscow government, repeated the theses on the budget read out the day before, answered questions and asked to adopt the law in full.

Then the leaders of the factions made general conclusions and recommendations. Stepan Orlov and Yelena Nikolaeva, representing United Russia and My Moscow, predictably supported the budget, emphasizing the importance of its rapid adoption. “United Russia believes that the proposed budget is stable,” said Mr. Orlov. “Revenues will exceed expenditures, perhaps not as much as we planned in previous years, but the situation has changed.” He called the rejection of the amendments a “politically difficult decision” justified by the difficult economic situation. Ms. Nikolaeva added that in the new budget, none of the state programs was curtailed, and “correctly placed accents” made it possible to maintain a balance between the social and economic needs of the city.

Mohammed Yandiev (SRZP) said that his faction had developed an alternative budget in the summer, but the draft of the Moscow government, in his opinion, was drawn up “in the same trend.” It would not hurt to include a strategy for socio-economic development and new state programs, Mr. Yandiev made a reservation, but nevertheless considered it possible to adopt the budget without amendments in order to “show residents that the deputies have united and together resist the threats that may arise tomorrow or the day after tomorrow” .

Other factions and independent deputies, however, did not support the positive attitude. For example, Nikolai Zubrilin, the leader of the Communist Party faction, considered that the budget was not socially oriented enough, and some of its articles, taking into account inflation, show a significant decline in funding. “This is an obvious regression, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation cannot support such a budget,” the communist said. Maxim Kruglov (Yabloko) complained about the lack of a full-fledged public discussion of the project and expressed dissatisfaction with the growth of the reserve fund, spending from which is “uncontrolled and opaque for deputies and society.” Earlier at the meeting, Yabloko found out from Ms. Zyabbarova that the money from this fund would go, among other things, to the restoration of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. At the same time, Mr. Kruglov criticized the abbreviated format of the budget discussion, calling it a way to force the opposition “to give up their parliamentary powers and responsibility to the voters.”

It should be noted that even before the start of the meeting, eight deputies of the Moscow State Duma signed a statement on the inadmissibility of adopting the budget in an accelerated mode and refusing to amend it.

The oppositionists also asked to give them at least two weeks to submit their proposals, but the Duma rejected this initiative, limiting the time for making amendments to ten minutes. In addition, the parliamentary majority decided to refuse speeches of deputies in the debate (with the exception of representatives of factions), and when Yevgeny Stupin (KPRF) began to criticize the budget during the consideration of another issue, he was turned off the microphone and officially reprimanded.

As a result, only 21 amendments were submitted for voting in the second reading (in the previous three years, 100–200 amendments were proposed to the budget), none of which was approved by the Duma majority.

As a result of the discussion, the draft budget was approved on the whole with the same indicators as in the first reading: 28 votes in favor, 16 against and one abstention.

Kira Heifetz