Online newspaper Yevrovisti, 02.06.2014

«The economic trends in recent years (in Russia) allow to reach a clear conclusion: the potential of Putin’s model of extensive raw growth has exhausted».
This was stated by the founder of the Russian political party YABLOKO, Grigory Yavlinsky, an economist, in his report on the YABLOKO St Petersburg branch re-election conference, which took place on May 31.
According to the economist, «the causes of that are serious shortcomings of the Russian economy and its structural problems» while «Western countries sanctions are adding difficulties».
According to Yavlinsky, during the last 15 years, Russia’s economic growth has been associated with higher oil prices and a more complete use of available resources.
At the same time, he said that the lack of both secure property rights and an independent judiciary, corruption and raiding, including state one were among the factors limiting Russia’s economic growth.
Yavlinsky attributed both low productivity and inefficiency, high production costs, lack of diversification to the structural problems of the economy.
According to the politician, Western sanctions pose a real threat to the Russian economy: a gradual decline in exports of Russia’s energy resources, obstacles for high technology import into Russia, restrictions on foreign borrowing for the financial sector, the possibility of a new arms race.
According to Yavlinsky, these sanctions will lead to both rise of prices, increase of inflation, unemployment, growth of military spending, while these problems will occur in the next few years and significantly affect the Russian economy and the lives of citizens.
For his part, YABLOKO Party Chairman Sergey Mitrokhin said that Western sanctions against Russia can not be a way out of this situation.
He made this statement at a Liberal International congress, which has been held recently in the city of Rotterdam (Netherlands).
In particular, the politician said that the European business sharply opposes the sanctions as the Western countries could lose hundreds of thousands of jobs existing due to supplies of goods to Russia.
According to Mitrokhin, even if the United States and the European Union will agree the sanctions, a number of countries, such as China, still will not join them.
The politician also suggested that the Western sanctions will not lead to a change in policy of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, but on the contrary, the Russian government will use the sanctions for both further injection of anti-Western hysteria, folding civil liberties and suppressing the opposition.
The YABLOKO Party Chairman also said: «The best way out is something like a Marshall Plan for Ukraine. When the citizens of Russia will see that the European integration has led to a better life of Ukrainians, they sooner or later will realize that Putin is leading the country to a standstill, and that there is no real alternative to the European way in the modern world».

According to the YABLOKO Party Press Service