The chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, Velary Ryazansky, is a guest of the Tribuna program. He sums up results of the spring session of the Russian parliament.
- The spring session was very busy. What would you have singled out in your committee work?
- The agenda of the social unit of the Federation Council and the State Duma always differs with quite a large, saturated load. First of all, I would note that the whole set of questions associated with joining the economic and social space of Crimea to the legislative field of the Russian Federation.
We did not make changes to the legislation, and it was mostly already about the practical application of previous decisions and in order to help Crimea, its services, which are primarily working in the system of social protection, to be able to use the new tools that have emerged due to legislation adopted in 2014. It is not an easy science, as they say, because the legislation of Crimea and Sevastopol is different in that it is a unitary state law, it is largely different from our federal law. And without the help of our regions, for both Crimea and Sevastopol it would be very difficult to develop, implement and adapt to the new conditions of application of social legislation. It is quite extensive. Here, there are health, social protection, and pension legislation is here, and questions of the work of the fund of obligatory medical insurance are here, social insurance and much more. The protection of motherhood and childhood ...
In the final stage of the spring session Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko, as the chairman of the upper house, visited Crimea literally a few days ago in order to become better acquainted with the work that is being done by the authorities in the region recently, in order to verify on the spot how the reforms and transformations that had to be conducted in Crimea and Sevastopol are going.
Considering other issues, I would point out a large block of topics related to the implementation of our international obligations after signing the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. We ratified this convention in 2008, and all this time adapted our own legislation and adjusted the ability to adapt to a real-life environment for all types of disability, which are presented here, in order to strictly follow the principle that no disabled person is to blame for the fact that he cannot use one or another service of his environment, the environment is to blame, the authorities are to blame, that they have not been able to adapt it in order for people with disabilities of different categories to be able to enjoy this environment.
Today the program Accessible Environment will be implemented in the country for the second time already. The program is designed for five years until 2020. This is quite a serious resource, about 200 billion rubles, nearly all regions joined in it, and most importantly – we made changes to sectoral legislation, that is, about 25 changes to the laws related to the functioning of industry, we will now be obliged to take into account the peculiarities of working with disabled people. This means that industries such as transportation, communication, mail, medical institutions, cultural institutions, municipal and state management, sports, metro, where it exists, and many others, air transport, rail, issues of adaptation of our industries to the conditions for the functioning must be carried out strictly now.
I call it a kind of small, very important revolution in the sense of changing the philosophy of the attitude of the state to the problem of accessibility of the environment for people with disabilities, not to mention the very important aspect of employment of disabled people.
The resonant question is, in my opinion, the issue of restrictions on the admission to work for us, and it is considered to be a work, foreign experts in the field of physical culture and sports, change the numerical structure of the foreign players that can play in our professional clubs, where game species of sports work. And the recent resonant decision of the Russian Football Union on the head coach of the country is also a consequence of earlier decisions. They are fundamental, they enable the government to go boldly into the area of responsibility, to regulate these processes, not just leave it at the mercy of clubs and federations themselves. Because the issues of development of physical culture and sport are as important to the state as any other issues. And we care about how our kids, going through training, through youth sports schools, can get into professional clubs later and make us happy with their play, their records, if we do not deal with their preparation, but for big money just to exploit the potential of mercenaries. That cannot be allowed.
- We smoothly proceed to GTO norms…
- In this case the theme of the elderly was exploited a little. The Caucasus has always been distinguished by longevity, we exploited this issue at the second Spartakiade of pensioners, which was held this time in Saratov, and there were demonstration performances on the competition of GTO norms by our pensioners, and more than that, by the most simple pensioners, not professionally trained pensioners, but those who won at the district and regional Spartakiades and came to the final games in Saratov. Once again I want to repeat: these are not veterans of the sport. These are not professional veterans. Those are simple pensioners who demonstrated how they will take the GTO norms in their age groups - 9th, 10th and 11th. And 25 people, selected by computer, that is, by random numbers, went to the site of the stadium in front of everyone, fulfilled these demonstration performances on the completition of GTO norms. It means that with the compliance of elementary rules of behavior in life – care for their own physical condition, for the continuation of an active lifestyle, and work, and an active lifestyle, pensioners may cope with the tasks set out in the 9th, 10th and 11th category of delivery standards of GTO pretty well. That means, almost everyone can do it. The secret here is very simple: do not smoke, do not abuse alcohol, and move to the best of your ability, try to prolong your active longevity, overload memory and carry out feasible physical activity.
- Valery Vladimirovich, tell me, were any difficult questions raised during this session, for example, which discussion has been postponed to the autumn session?
- Yes. The debates on issues related to land legislation were quite heated. And I have to say why. And why it concerns areas including the Caucasian Mineral Waters, and other resorts located in these unique areas. There will be serious changes in land law. Indeed, the country lives, the country needs to build housing, young families are formed, children are born, so people really need a shelter. If we do not develop residential mortgages and housing, the construction industry and its attendant economic sectors of economic life will die. Therefore, the state must help to satisfy this vital need. Some solve it with the help of their own resources, some build themselves, some use the help of neighbors and some buy ready-made housing. In this connection, the question of the fate of the land areas inside towns becomes natural, and these processes of land allocation are not always transparent and in some cases are very painful. And truth to tell, very often it causes corruption scandals too. Therefore a major bill was introduced related to the change of the principles of zoning of the land. We discussed this topic. We were able to discuss and approve many issues and approaches. But the pace of discussion and decision-making offered by the government seemed to us to be too high. Even Valentina Matviyenko had to intervene, together with the chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy Azarov, and on land relations, Gennadiy Gorbunov. The chairman of the Federation Council gave us a very clear task – to take a constructive, tough stance in dialogue with the government, but to strictly follow the settings that we have received.
And the meeting with Dmitry Kozak has shown that the government, after weighing the pros and cons, decided to move the discussion of the final part of the law to the autumn session, because it touches agricultural problems, and therefore agricultural land. In this case it is necessary to transfer land from one category to another very accurately, because it is a national treasure, it is food security.
As for housing issues and questions of health-resort areas, it was a subject of anxiety expressed by members of our committee, and we cited the state of affairs of the Caucasian Mineral Waters like a separate territory, which shall be rigidly secured as an area of special responsibility of the state, as an example, because, to date, nearly all mineral springs of known mineral waters around the globe are located in this region, and we cannot sacrifice the quality of this unique pool.
And we have doubts that proposed law will protect the Caucasian Mineral Waters and other resorts in the area, including, for example, the Altai Region, the Urals, the central belt, the Kaliningrad Region or Kamchatka. That's why we have defended this point of view, and the government took into account our arguments and postponed the consideration to the autumn session.
Here's an example of how dialogue of the Parliament and the Government should be based not on the principles of speed and the interests of one side, but also taking into account the interests of the other side. And the other side is the regions. We are the Chamber of Regions, and we must take into account the views of the regions. If they are not satisfied, if they and their Parliaments have different points of view, of course, we have to go to the agreed positions.
To be continued
