Primakov Will Not Try to Outsmart Anyone?

Prime Ministers of 12 CIS countries (see photo) met in Moscow to discuss common ways of alleviating the difficult economic situation and joint measures to weather the financial crisis. According to Russian Premier Yevgeny Primakov, their ideas will be brought together in a separate document which will become a plan for joint management of the economic crisis.

The Russian Prime Minister also attached much importance to the issue of reforming the CIS structure. The main report on the issue was made by CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovsky. According to Primakov, the meeting attendees "heeded the proposed restructuring plan."

Meanwhile, many analysts point out that Berezovsky, while still in control of "traffic in Kremlin corridors," has lately been losing his influence, which is generally attributed to the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov as Russia's Prime Minister.

This can have several explanations. First, Primakov, unlike, say, Chernomyrdin or Lebed, does not owe anything to Berezovsky. Secondly, Primakov, after heading Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service for a long time, has sufficient information about and influence on one of the most professional and at the same time most closed Russian law enforcement bodies. Finally, and most importantly, Primakov does not seem to have any intentions to play secret games with Berezovsky.

And this, obviously, is the most beneficial position for him, because nobody has yet been able to beat or use Berezovsky when playing by his rules. Witness the words of another good specialist in secret intrigues, formerly head of the Russian President's Security Service and currently Russian Duma deputy Aleksandr Korzhakov about nobody being able to outsmart Berezovsky.

Primakov is not trying to outsmart anybody (at least, this is how it looks on the surface). He emphatically treats Berezovsky as a government official, albeit a high-ranking one. And nothing more. It seems like Berezovsky has been a little baffled by such an open state position of the Russian Premier. However, Berezovsky would not be Berezovsky if, having failed to put his own man in the Premier's chair, he would not have gotten actively involved in other areas, such as, for example, CIS reform.

In the view of Moscow News, the reform mechanism proposed by Berezovsky envisages "sovereign states turning into shareholders of a certain political investment fund. The issue is the role that Berezovsky's model envisions for sovereign states. If their official representatives are appointed de facto exclusively after confirmation by the executive secretary, they cannot control his activity. Moreover, the CIS Head of States Council would not have to convene regularly since the executive secretary would be vested with the right to approve any decision in "a working order" by flying from capital to capital and obtaining the necessary signatures."