The Russian government unscheduledly withdrew 22 bills from the State Duma

The government unscheduledly withdrew 22 bills previously submitted to the State Duma, due to the loss of their relevance. Information confirmed Kommersant in the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko.

According to the newspaper, in the autumn session, the Cabinet of Ministers withdrew 18 bills according to the same procedure. In January, at a meeting of the leadership of the State Duma with the secretaries of state of the ministries, the deputies proposed to speed up the “unloading” of the legislative portfolio. The idea was supported by Grigorenko. It is specified that 14 bills, on which the government no longer insists, were identified in February, and 8 more in March.

In particular, among the retracted documents is an initiative to create a Russian analogue of Google Play and AppStore. The necessary changes to address the issue were made to the law on personal data. The Cabinet of Ministers also withdrew the project of simplified obtaining a Russian residence permit in exchange for investments. The initiative was implemented by amendments to the law on the legal status of foreigners. In addition, projects on digital control of international transit of goods across the Russian Federation (implemented by an act of the EAEU), amendments to the law on concessions describing PPP in the field of artificial intelligence (recognized as redundant), etc., have lost their relevance.

In parallel, from April 1, the government is experimentally launching a mechanism to speed up work on by-laws – transferring their intra-governmental discussion to the “auto-negotiation” mode. The bill will be considered approved in case of violation of the ten-day period for consideration of a regulatory legal act (NLA) in other ministries and departments. The experiment will last until September 30, then the Cabinet of Ministers will decide on the introduction of “auto-negotiation” on an ongoing basis.

In December 2022, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin informedthat over the past year the lower house adopted 653 laws, this is a record for the entire history of the parliament. He added that by the end of 2022, 1,319 more bills remained in the legislative portfolio of deputies. RBC pointed outthat the government submitted almost 60% of the total number of approved documents (390 projects) to the State Duma.