United Russia MPs meet prime minister before summer recess

(Interfax – Moscow, July 15, 2013) State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin believes that the spring session allowed the lower house of the Russian parliament to learn political lessons.

“The past session was not easy, and, in some sense, it was a breakthrough session as far as both the amount of work and the political lessons learnt are concerned,” he said at United Russia party chairman and Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev’s meeting with the party faction in the Duma. Naryshkin thanked Medvedev for constructive interaction between the government and the State Duma, adding that they had managed to establish dialogue.

He also recalled some of the spring session’s high-profile bills. “The State Duma became the leading political forum for the discussion of problems. This forum is accessible to all political forces. Tax policy, the protection of copyright and related rights, the extension of privatization deadlines and many other important issues (sentence as received),” Naryshkin said.

He also discussed important areas of parliament’s work during the next autumn session. According to him, this will be pension reform, a bill on a mixed system of elections to the Duma, and constitutional amendments to merge courts. “All of these and other law-making objectives will require United Russia to engage in open political dialogue both inside and outside the State Duma,” he added.

(State news agency RIA Novosti reported Naryshkin referring at the meeting to an earlier campaign by the opposition to collect signatures in support of the dissolution of the State Duma. Both Naryshkin and Medvedev were reported as saying that this should not be allowed to happen. “Legally elected authorities should exercise their powers over the precise period that was envisaged. Otherwise, this would be very dangerous for our state,” Medvedev said. (RIA Novosti news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1358 gmt 15 Jul 13))

[featured image is file photo from different event]