What the Russian papers say

© Alex StefflerWhat the Russian papers say
What the Russian papers say - Sputnik International
Subscribe
The Russians are not coming / Retirement insured by new generations? / Bulgaria backs out of energy projects with Russia / NATO defends its Manas Transit Center

Vedomosti

The Russians are not coming

Russian peacekeepers will not be sent to southern Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz authorities' efforts are not sufficient to stabilize the situation, said security council secretaries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member-countries yesterday following an emergency meeting in Moscow. As many as 124 people have been killed and 1,600 injured in three days of interethnic clashes in the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions of Kyrgyzstan, according to official Health Ministry figures.

At a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha made it plain that no peacekeepers would be sent. At a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Medvedev said the CSTO was not planning to interfere, but on Saturday, Rosa Otunbayeva, prime minister of Kyrgyzstan's interim government, called on Russia to send peacekeepers to the country's south. The ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, also backed the idea.

Under the CSTO charter, it is the presidents who decide to conduct a peacekeeping operation in CSTO member-countries on the basis of national legislation and following an official request by a member. Otunbayeva's plea offers a way of enacting this peacekeeping mechanism, but no one wants to get involved, argues Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the CIS Institute, after all, sending armed troops is an extreme measure.

Russian political analyst Alexei Vlasov says any decision to send peacekeepers must be based on consensus, with none of the seven CSTO presidents voting against. However, Vlasov notes that expert opinions on the matter differ. Although some hoped the CSTO would overcome their disagreements and agree to send peacekeepers, this has not happened: why should Armenia or Belarus care about events in distant Kyrgyzstan?

The clashes and disturbances in the country started following a fight between Kyrgyz and Uzbek youths in Osh on Thursday night. About 60,000 Uzbeks have fled to Uzbekistan. By Monday night, the situation in the Jalal-Abad Region had begun to stabilize, according to local residents, while the Osh Region remains tense. The interim government declared a state of emergency in these two areas.

In 1990, during a previous large-scale interethnic clash that cost a thousand lives, two paratroop divisions were sent from Russia to southern Kyrgyzstan. On Saturday, Russia's Defense Ministry dispatched 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan to protect the Russian military base Kant and other facilities there.

Ekspert

Retirement insured by new generations?

In the next few years, Russia will face a need to dramatically reform its pension system. We will either have to increase the retirement age, especially for women, or finance retirement benefits through a large issue of government bonds, which would effectively shift the pension burden to future generations.

The pension burden will continue to grow through the next decade. Whereas now the ratio is one pensioner per three working people, by 2020 it is expected to change to 1:2.

This will happen as Soviet baby-boomers born in the 1950s retire and the 1990s generation reaches working age. The two demographic waves will overlap and increase the pension load on those working. An aging population is a problem shared by all European countries. However, the reasons for it are different in Russia: here it is a continuing result of World War II more than an increased life span after retirement.

Recently, the government has been busy improving the lives of retired people, despite shrinking federal revenues. Perhaps government officials are attempting to compensate for the combined effects on consumer demand of growing unemployment and reduced income during the recession. Or, possibly, it is part of their approach for the next elections.

However, raising social taxes will not restore the balance of Russia's system of non-budget funds even temporarily. Further on, the need for subsidies will grow fast, mainly due to the growing burden on the workforce.

As a result, pensions are becoming one of the most pressing problems for the Finance Ministry. The government will either have to increase subsidies to non-budget funds, or significantly increase insurance premiums. The higher the premium, the more difficult it will be to collect; admittedly, there is a shortfall already.

Another solution would be to increase the retirement age, which is a highly unpopular move. However, it would help increase Russians' retirement benefits and stabilize the pension system, according to Yevsei Gurvich who heads the Economic Expert Group independent think tank.

Earlier the Finance Ministry proposed a gradual increase in the retirement age to 60-62.

Another strategic solution would be to accept increases in the budget deficit and government debt, that is, to finance pensions by a large issue of long-term pension bonds. However, this policy would require a calculation of long-term changes in the debt burden on the country's finance.

Kommersant

Bulgaria backs out of energy projects with Russia

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov on Friday sharply criticized the two largest Russian-Bulgarian energy projects, according to local media.

He said after a meeting with EU ambassadors that Bulgaria was pulling out of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project and suspending construction of the Belene nuclear power plant. By way of explanation, he said the pipeline was routed across an environmental reserve and was not supported by the residents of the Burgas area, while the project's effectiveness was also questionable.

Bulgaria has not played a big part in the construction of the oil pipeline from Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis since early 2009, when Borisov's government took over. The project was suspended, while the feasibility study was still underway. According to Russia's Transneft, Bulgaria's debt has reached $4.88 million since then. Russia, Bulgaria and Greece signed a memorandum of cooperation in 2004 and established an SPV, Trans-Balkan Pipeline B.V., controlled by Russia with 51%, with Greece and Bulgaria holding 24.5% each.

Russia said last August that it would join another pipeline project bypassing the Straits - the 75 million ton Samsun-Ceyhan developed by Italian Eni, Turkish Calik, Transneft and Rosneft. Last spring, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin estimated the project at $3 billion. Yet, Russia was not planning to abandon the Greek-Bulgarian pipeline at that point, because it was expected to transport more expensive low-sulfur oil from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, while the Turkish pipeline would handle Urals crude.

The Belene plant construction began stalling in 2009, too, when German RWE withdrew from the project, 51% controlled by Bulgaria's National Electric Company (NEK). The contractor was Russian company Atomstroyexport.

Borisov did not talk about Bulgaria's attitude toward Russia's third energy project, South Stream, also crossing the country. However, on Saturday, Deputy Foreign Minister Marin Raykov did say that the EU-backed Nabucco project was more important for his country.

Russian-Bulgarian talks have always focused on all three of the projects, although there never was any official link between them. However, the South Stream issue began slipping last year over a disagreement as to who should have control over the SPV, who would own the land used by the pipeline and who would regulate the transit fees. Raykov said on Saturday that there were still many questions about South Stream, although Gazprom says the talks are still on going.

The Russian government has not yet reacted to Bulgaria's demarche.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

NATO defends its Manas Transit Center

Washington trying to reopen Kyrgyz airbase

On Thursday, Robert Simmons, NATO's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, arrived in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. This is his third visit to the Central Asian republic.

Analysts say Simmons has come to "save" the Transit Center at Manas, a United States military installation at Manas International Airport 30 km from Bishkek. The facility was opened in December 2001 to support U.S. military operations in the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Simmons visits Kyrgyzstan each time the existence of the Transit Center at Manas, called Manas Air Base until 2009, is threatened. The high-ranking diplomat's first visit to Bishkek took place in May 2005.

Then, Washington was concerned about the base's future after the March 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan that overthrew President Askar Akayev. Simmons paid another visit to the republic in February 2009, or two weeks before President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced his intention to close the base.

This time, Simmons met with Roza Otunbayeva, head of the Kyrgyz interim government, and acting Finance Minister Temir Sariyev, who is responsible for budget income.

Held behind closed doors, the talks are likely to have touched on the preservation of the Manas Transit Center, especially since NATO's largest funding streams in Kyrgyzstan are channeled through the facility.

The sides have a lot to discuss because some analysts explain the latest Kyrgyz change of power by Moscow's discontent with Bakiyev's failure to dismantle the base. Simmons now has to secure the facility's future.

The Kyrgyz upheaval has also drawn attention to a corruption scandal linked with the Manas center. Contrary to standard practice, the U.S. military signed an unfavorable fuel-delivery contract with a company allegedly linked with the Bakiyev family. The Kyrgyz company and its owners profited handsomely from large-scale aircraft kerosene sales from Russia to the republic for domestic consumption.

The Kyrgyz media say Washington has paid $15 million in first-quarter lease payments ahead of schedule and promises to transfer the second tranche to the cash-strapped Kyrgyz budget soon. Fuel deliveries are still the only unresolved issue.

Due to the current violence and chaos in Kyrgyzstan, U.S. aircraft have stopped operating from the Manas facility. The "Bakiyev" company is not supplying fuel either. It is therefore unclear where the fuel will come from, and at what price.

RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.

MOSCOW, June 15 (RIA Novosti)

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала