Development of the Russian Model of Federalism: Relationships of Center and Regions in 2007-2016

Abstract

This article was written by Yuriy Pochta for the Council of Europe and was published in the spring of 2016 in the collection: Regionalisation trends in European countries 2007-2015. A study by members of the Group of Independent Experts of the European Charter of Local Self-Government / Editor: Prof. Francesco Merloni. Strasburg, 2016. Yuriy Pochta is a member of a group of independent experts of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, which is the pan-European political assembly representing local and regional authorities from the forty-seven member states of the Council of Europe. The Congress entrusted the Group of Independent Experts on the European Charter of Local Self-Government with the task of producing a comparative academic study. This study is based on information from Council of Europe member States affected by the regionalisation process and on recent regionalisation developments in Europe. The intention is to review the situation regarding regionalisation since the 2007 report of the European Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR). Following on from this, the idea is to achieve a broader understanding of the phenomenon from both the legal and institutional angles. The main aim of this study is to evaluate regionalisation trends, towards both more and less regionalisation, in individual countries and consequently in Europe as a whole. At the same time it seeks to determine whether the various countries considered actually have regional institutions as defined by the 2009 Council of Europe Reference Framework for Regional Democracy. In preparing his section on Russia, Yuriy Pochta proceeded from the fact that the modern Russian state emerged relatively recently - at the turn of 1980-90-s. of the 20th century and its formation, including its federal structure continues. It is shown that since 2007 the process of regionalization of the Russian Federation is developing successfully. Having opted for the creation of a democratic society, post-Soviet Russian Federation borrowed Western model, adapting it to its own circumstances. The impact of these conditions leads to the fact that it is quite difficult to relate the existing Russian federal system to the classic Western model. On this occasion Russian and Western scholars participate in a lively debate about the nature of Russian federalism - whether it is real or a simulation, whether it is in the crisis. But in 2014, in connection with the entry of the Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation, Russian federalism issues become even more urgent, raising a number of questions about the evolution of Russian federalism, the possibility of the organic integration of the two new subjects in the federation in a situation of sharp complication of Russia's relations with the West, led by the United States, caused by the political and socio-economic crisis in the Republic of Ukraine.