Russian passports are called to foreign centers – Kommersant

For citizens who have left Russia for a long period of time, the procedure for obtaining general passports should be simplified by organizing the work of multifunctional centers abroad. This proposal was made by Ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova, who previously advocated for the issuance of these documents in consular offices. To organize the work of the MFC abroad, it will be necessary to amend at least two federal laws and adopt several government decrees.

The fact that in order to replace general passports in foreign countries, the work of the International Financial Center should be organized abroad, Ms. Moskalkova said in a report submitted to the head of state on the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights for 2022. “It seems necessary to take measures to simplify the procedure for obtaining a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, enabling compatriots to do this without leaving for Russia, including by providing access to the portal of public services and organizing the activities of the MFC,” he quotes TASS the text of the report. Tatyana Moskalkova considers it expedient to organize the work of centers abroad in connection with the restrictions introduced after the start of the NWO, “economic and logistical difficulties” and the cancellation of many Russian flights. Because of this, the report says, obtaining and replacing national passports “becomes a non-trivial task.”

In November 2022, Ms. Moskalkova came up with the idea of ​​issuing general passports to Russian citizens who found themselves far from their homeland in foreign consular offices. According to her, the ombudsman applied to the government of the Russian Federation with a request to give the consulates the appropriate powers. The exact number of those who left the Russian Federation is unknown. In December 2022, Alfa-Bank analysts reported (with reference to statistics on the labor market and consumption) that about 1.2 million people left Russia in the third quarter of last year.

Tomashevskaya & Partners lawyer Alena Shnypko previously reminded that a general passport is issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the territory of the Russian Federation, and the functions of consular institutions only include issuing passports.

To change this procedure, it is required to make amendments to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 828 (approves the provision on a citizen’s passport) and to Federal Law No. 154 on the consular charter of the Russian Federation, she added. As for the idea of ​​organizing an MFC, their activities are regulated by federal law No. 210 on the organization of the provision of state and municipal services. In Art. 15 of this law states that the activities of the centers are organized by the authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, and the rules for their work are approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1376. None of these documents says anything about the possibility of such institutions operating abroad.

According to the Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation, in 2022 there were 2.8 thousand offices and 9.8 thousand divisions of multifunctional centers in the country. In 2014, the total amount of funding for the program to create the IFC was estimated by the department at 30 billion rubles. The current activities of the centers are usually financed by the regional authorities. For example, Moscow in 2023 will allocate 1.8 billion rubles. from the city budget for the material support of the MFC, as well as the purchase of equipment and software for them.

The Ministry of Economy, which oversees the development of the MFC, limited itself to a comment for Kommersant that “a large-scale system of public service centers created on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation has really proven itself in terms of the quality and availability of public services throughout the country.”

“Service standards in Russia are fast, high-quality and convenient provision of services to the population due to the implementation of the one-stop-shop principle, both in-person (MFC) and electronically (EPGU),” the department said, recalling that issues of extradition abroad Russian documents, “including the quality of service for citizens”, are within the competence of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“Therefore, it would be right to discuss the idea primarily with colleagues from the Foreign Ministry,” the Ministry of Economy added.

As Kommersant already reported, in April 2023, Tatyana Moskalkova announced that the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation agreed with the proposal to issue general passports at consular offices abroad. However, Kommersant’s diplomatic department then said that so far they were only “working through” such an idea “in an interdepartmental format with interested federal executive bodies.”

Alexander Voronov, Evgenia Kryuchkova