Valdai Club

The closeness between the leaders of Italy and Russia and the hopefully growing political role of the Italian prime minister in Europe are valid premises to raise Matteo Renzi's voice in Brussels, urging a decisive end of the "commercial war" against Russia.

Approximately 570 Italian companies are present now in Russia, particularly dealing with energy, automotive industry, food processing and telecommunications. As to the energy sector, Italy has a fruitful partnership with the Russian government, sharing real interdependence and common interests.

Valdai Club experts were polled on the results of 2013 and the most important events and people who influenced or changed international affairs The majority of the experts agreed that Vladimir Putin was Person of the Year.

Paradoxically, Russia has very low central government debt – around 10% – and external debt a bit over 2%. Therefore it is unnecessary to use devaluation as a tool to minimize the national debt. Instead, the biggest reason the ruble is continuing to slide is the reduction in export earnings and increasing capital outflows. Devaluation, as long as it occurs on a large scale, could help Russia’s export sector, since Russian policymakers probably expect the global commodity market will continue slowing in China and the rest of emerging and advanced countries.

The crisis in Western Europe at its core consists of low economic growth, poor economic and political governance, and high sovereign debts of European countries, but the effects of international speculative attacks on the EU could easily spillover to Russia. If Russia were to dramatically reduce its oil exports to Western Europe, the effects will be severe on the economy of the West as a whole.

The world economy deserves financial stability and a strict and coordinated policy on the financial side. Having a new world currency, in addition to the US$ and the Euro as key reserve currencies at present, would be beneficial as long as it meets the need for more world stability.

Russia is about to move toward even a much slower economic growth until 2014, which will be inadequate and close to actual stagnation. This is one more confirmation that despite higher oil revenues in the past, no one in Moscow or elsewhere has ever tried to elaborate a truly credible strategy for economic growth.

Healthy electoral competition between Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin could be the natural end of the “dual power” relationship in Moscow, giving Russians the final choice on who should reside in the Kremlin for the next six years.