 |
 |
Recommendations of the 2nd International Scientific and Practical Conference "Budgetary policy of regions, cities and communes in the European North"
(Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, Russia, May 27-30, 2002) Having discussed budgetary policy problems in regions, cities and communes in the European North, the participants of the Conference note that the Russian Federation witnesses a trend towards considering the budget as a tool of the market economy. Certain practical experience has been accumulated in budget planning, corresponding legal norms are being elaborated, allowing to implement the budgetary process with particular features inherent to economic development of our country taken into account. Efforts are being made to build up a system of interrelations between the Federation, its subjects and local government bodies, based on the principles of inter-budgetary relations stipulated by the Budget Code of the Russian Federation. Integration processes in Russia develop within the framework of the Economic Interaction Association, Inter-parliamentary Associations and Federal Districts. Legislative and executive government bodies of the republics and regions, as well as local government bodies of the territories included in the North-Western Federal District develop contacts in the field of budgetary policy with Nordic countries - Finland, Sweden and Norway. Creation of reliable, up-to-date and accessible information resources concerning the budgetary process is under way, to be used by legislative and executive power, local government bodies, scientists, teachers and citizens. At the same time, the participants of the Conference have to admit that: - within the current federal legislation, extremely limited tax-and-budgetary powers of subjects and municipal institutions have existed so far. Tax policy as a tool for economic management in the Russian Federation regions has been hardly taken advantage of. - ever changing approaches while forming the federal budget for the coming fiscal year in terms of identifying the rates of regulating federal income for the Russian Federation subjects (allocation interest to regional budgets) undermine motivation to carry out structural reforms, to develop tax potentialities of the regions and to increase tax collection. - "taxable base" to fill up regional and local budgets is constantly being reduced due to the tax policy pursued at the federal level, which stipulates centralization of the main budget-forming taxes in the federal budget. - Debts of enterprises as to taxes and fines are cleared off as a rule in the form of gratuitous writing off, which also reduces the income base of local budgets. - there exists no definite demarcation of powers and responsibilities between various-level government bodies as to the realization of "expense powers". - state social standards has not been approved yet, neither the corresponding financial norms through branches have been created, which makes it impossible to realize in practice the principle of unity of the budget system of the Russian Federation in terms of budget planning. Therefore it is impossible to implement conciliatory procedures to identify basic indices in the field of inter-budgetary relations. - local budgets have no real income base of their own, needed to carry out the reform of the housing and municipal economy as one of the most important structural reforms being under way in Russia according to the Russian Federation President's Message. - inclusion of production and social objects in municipal property at balance cost that exceeds considerably the market cost, results in extra expenditures on their maintenance. - despite certain efforts to "formalize" distribution of financial assistance from the federal budget, the Russian Federation subjects lack definite criteria, procedures and calculations, as well as statistical indices, applied in the course of inter-budgetary relations formation. Funds distribution methods from the Federal Foundation for financial assistance to the Russian Federation subjects are rather complicated. Due to these factors it seems impossible to ensure transparence of the budgetary process in the Russian Federation, middle-term and long-term budget planning and, therefore, realization of the budget federalism principles stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The 2nd International Scientific and Practical Conference on "Budgetary policy of regions, cities and communes in the European North" recommends: 1. THE FEDERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: 1.1. To introduce addenda in the Budget Code of the Russian Federation as to: - demarcation and fixing of income sources between federal, regional and local budgets, including regulating income, for no less than 3 years; - agreeing upon, fixing and distribution of joint-authority expenses of the Russian Federation and the Russian Federation subjects. 1.2. To adopt as first priority the Federal Law "On the state minimum social standards". 1.3. To accelerate adoption of the Federal laws, also envisaged by the Budget Code of the Russian Federation: 1) "On the state financial control in the Russian Federation"; 2) "On the procedure for rendering and defining the rate of financial assistance to equalize the level of minimum budgetary provisioning"; 3) "On the procedure for providing and calculating subventions to the budgets of the Russian Federation subjects"; 4) "On the procedure and terms of the development budget formation (in capital expenses)"; 5) "On the procedure for creating, approving and establishing indices for the plans of financial and economic activities of the state and municipal enterprises"; 6) "On state and municipal contracts as well as on state and municipal orders"; 7) "On the procedure of managing registers of purchases under the state and municipal contracts"; 8) "On general principles of transferring certain state powers to local government bodies"; 9) "On general principles of the budgetary process organization in municipal institutions of the Russian Federation subjects"; 10) "On credit co-operation'. 1.4. To introduce into practice stage-by-stage transition to 2-, and later 3-year in advance preparation of draft federal budgets, as stipulated by the Budget Code of the Russian Federation. 1.5. To envisage for northern regions the transfer of the federal budget funds allocated to them during 1994-95 in the form of budget credits to render state financial support for northern transportation, to be owned by the federation subjects. 2. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION 2.1. In accordance with the requirements of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, to work out and approve: 1) the procedure for agreeing upon, fixing and distribution of joint-authority expenses of the Russian Federation and the Russian Federation subjects; 2) social standards, norms for financial costs on rendering state services, norms for minimum budgetary provisioning; norms for financial costs per state or municipal service rendered; 3) the procedure for agreeing upon norms for financial costs of rendering state services as well as norms for minimum budget provisioning, with the Russian Federation subjects; 4) the procedure for providing budget loans from the federal budget. 3. LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT BODIES OF THE FEDERATION SUBJECTS, LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES: 3.1. To assist in the realization of the principle of the budgetary process transparence, viewing this as accessibility, openness, clearness for budget information users. To go on working to provide transparence of both expense and income parts of the budget, which will allow in the end to improve confidence between economic subjects of corresponding levels. 3.2. To assist in organization of various forms of public participation in the budgetary process, including public-budgetary hearings, to ensure interaction between the authorities and the public. 3.3. To learn and disseminate the experience, new forms and methods of budget formation and realization, as well as to exert state financial and public control over their realization at the Russian Federation level (the city of Saint Petersburg, Republic of Karelia). 3.4. To widely use up-to-date information technologies to ensure transparence and openness of the budgetary process at every authority level, making available, in particular, on Web-sites: - of legislative bodies - laws on budgets and supplements to them; - of executive bodies - information on quarterly realization of the budgets. 3.5. To contribute to the development of credit co-operation as a basis of local government institute development. 4. HIGHER SCHOOLS, SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS, MINISTRIES AND DEPARTMENTS: 4.1. To expand the list of economic and law courses taught within the framework of regional component of the state standards, due to special courses dealing with the budgetary process at the level of the Russian Federation subject and local government body. 4.2. To promote research work dealing with budgetary policy and inter-budgetary relations at the three levels: federation- region - local government; to go on creating information resources for budgetary monitoring within the framework of Web-portals: FR Ministry of Finance (http://minfin.ru), "Open budget. Regions of Russia" (http://openbudget.karelia.ru), "Budget system of RF" (www.budgetrf.ru). 4.3. To continue work aimed at creating regional and municipal financial statistics. 4.4. To get familiar with and to generalize the theory and practice of budgetary process in countries with advanced market economy (in the first place, in Nordic countries - Finland, Sweden and Norway), in order to take advantage of this experience in Russia, as well as to create methods for civil institutes to get involved in the budgetary process. Participants of the 2nd International Scientific and Practical Conference on "BUDGETARY POLICY OF REGIONS, CITIES AND COMMUNES IN THE EUROPEAN NORTH" consider it advisable to hold similar conferences annually within the North-West of Russia, including them in the activities plans of the North-Western Inter-parliamentary Association, Association for Economic Interaction of the territories included in the North-West of the Russian Federation, and the North-Western Federal District. 
|
|
