Press Release, 21.11.2023

Photo: the Moscow City Duma / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 21 November, three pro-government factions in the Moscow parliament (United Russia, A Just Russia and My Moscow) made a proposal to the Moscow City Duma to adopt the Moscow budget for 2024 and the planning period for 2025-2026 at a meeting on 22 November – during just one sitting of the Moscow parliament, in one day, and without amendments. The Yabloko party faction released a statement on this:

“The factions United Russia, A Just Russia and My Moscow proposed to consider the budget of Moscow during one meeting of the Moscow City Duma.

We believe that such a proposal deprives deputies of their legal right to make the necessary amendments, contradicts the interests of Muscovites and jeopardises the development of our city.

In such a huge metropolis as Moscow, consideration of the budget requires special care – it involves a large number of macro and micro adjustments in order to really meet the needs of city residents and the tasks that the city sets for itself. In this case, the problem is aggravated by the consistent deprivation of local self-government of their powers, which closes their ability to influence the budget process, which means that by default it is more difficult for the authorities to obtain reliable information about what citizens need.

The draft budget is the most important document that the Moscow City Duma is working on. Denying deputies the right to make amendments for the second year in a row will actually be the next step in turning the city parliament into a body for approving the Mayor’s Offcie decisions. We are certain that the proposed procedure will reduce trust to the budget process on the part of citizens, who will again be taken out of the decision-making system in Moscow.

Our principled position is openness of discussion. We consider the system of opaque, behind-the-scenes agreements be unacceptable, with the help of this system the above-mentioned political parties want to deprive other deputies of their right to influence the city budget.

We do not intend to give up our right to participate in the budget process; this is our responsibility to Muscovites, whom we represent in the capital’s parliament. The Yabloko faction will submit its amendments to the budget at a meeting of the Moscow City Duma.

Head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma Maxim Kruglov,

faction deputies Daria Besedina, Yevgeny Bunimovich, Sergei Mitrokhin, Vladimir Ryzhkov”

UPDATE as of 22 November, 19:50. Yabloko deputies voted against the adoption of the Moscow draft budget for 2024 and the planning period 2025-2026. 28 deputies voted for the budget and 15 voted against. All six proposals of the Yabloko faction and nine amendments submitted by faction deputies individually were ignored by the parliamentary majority. The Moscow budget was adopted in the form in which the city Mayor Sergei Sobyanin sent it to the City Duma. Deputies of the Yabloko faction Maxim Kruglov and Yevgeny Bunimovich expressed their opinion at a meeting of the Moscow City Duma on the procedure for adopting the budget in one day and without amendments.