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“Russia should not pose as superior to other nations”
Published: 12 November, 2009, 14:29
Edited: 25 August, 2010, 13:10
TAGS: Russia, Interview, Politics
Prioritizing the economy, modernizing the industrial sector, and cooperative foreign policy with international partners were the key issues pointed out by three Russian analysts in response to the presidential address.
“I believe what President Medvedev meant was that Russia should not feel itself as superior towards its partners. Russia should be attentive to the experiences abroad. Russia should seek for solutions, for technologies, for relations to promote its own development,” told RT Konstantin Kosachev, who heads Russian Parliament’s Commission for Foreign Relations.
The Russian president addressed the nation in a televised speech on Thursday.
Kosachev believes that a very important part of Medvedev’s message is the call not to put the blame for all problems in Russia on some foreign hostile forces.
“We need to work better, to be more efficient in our economic policy, in our social policy, in order to be competitive and to be able to protect our national interests abroad,” he said.
In his address Dmitry Medvedev sent out a strong message to the country's diplomats, saying they should prioritize the economy. Political analyst Dmitry Polikanov believes the shift has been anticipated for quite some time.
“I assume that this is kind of a long tradition of the Russian diplomatic service to focus more on political issues,” says the analyst from the Russian Center for Policy Studies. He stated that in order to ensure modernization and development of the Russian economy and businesses that the president spoke about “the diplomatic services should also focus more on lobbyism and promotion of economic interest and on protection of national interest of business abroad.”
Polikanov also underlined that this issue was already quite topical several years ago, and was mentioned several times by then-president Vladimir Putin.
“It is quite clear that the system should be reformed and that the Russian foreign service should be more economically-minded, not only politically-minded,” the analyst noted.
Speaking on the comprehensive modernization of Russia, independent political analyst Aleksandr Fomenko called industrial recreation and measures to increase the demand for the products of Russian industry the main economic priority for the country.
“I hope we will start recreating the industrial infrastructure of the country, which we lost during the past years, and create a transport infrastructure… These are two things our country really needs.”
In his address Dmitry Medvedev also promised to support NGOs, which Fomenko agrees with, noting that non-commercial organizations are in need of help from the state. In order for them to work efficiently, a legal base should be developed first, so that NGOs can supply crucial social aid to the people of the country.
Speaking about foreign policy, Aleksandr Fomenko said that not much is going to change, as the president only confirmed the state’s pragmatic policy that was set in motion 10 or 15 years ago. “We really became very pragmatic in our foreign policy since Vladimir Putin’s presidency, or even earlier.”
12.11.2009, 14:09
ROAR: “US lacks clear approach to Asia”The White House is trying to shift “the center of international politics to the Asia-Pacific region,” analysts say. |
12.11.2009, 17:22
1 comment
“Medvedev is pushing for more political competition”In his first state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, Dmitry Medvedev proposed a set of political reforms aimed at widening peoples participation in politics and encouraging more political competition. |
Jesus, marzipan6 is now trying to highjack this string. Will he finally get it that no one here cares about estonia. There are many countries out there which are much better, more interesting and much higher priority. Talk about overinflated ego. Please, stop embarrassing yourself.
To “Big”: it’s interesting that one of the main areas of friction (amongst many others) between Estonia and its Soviet Russian rulers lay in the fact that Russia is enamored of bigness, and Estonia is not. Gigantic manufacturing plants, huge collective farms, enormous monuments, sweeping, noisy and extravagant gestures, bubbling emotionality, epic messianic theories of glory – all these things seem not even second nature to Russians, but first nature. Russia tried to force all of these onto Estonia even though none of it was in keeping with the Estonian character, and none of it was wanted or needed by Estonia itself. Estonians enjoy quietness, value solitude, have an affinity for individuality not collectivization, do not like showy emotion, and aspire to scales of economy that are in keeping with the size and resources of their land rather than with the vastness of Russia. Estonia is not an epic kind of land. Its natural features endow it with the sense of being a quiet, solitary land, at peace within itself, with no jagged mountains or ravines or deserts, just quiet vast forests dotted with numberless lakes, empty for the most part of human habitation, and of small settlements that fit harmoniously into this background. Russia’s slash-and-burn mentality of irresponsible development is anathema to Estonians. It was Russia’s environmental vandalism in Estonia that first galvanized overt opposition to Soviet rule in the 1980s.
MEJanssen, you make a lot of very good points! Good job!