:: Lawmakers Recalled After Bill Is Rejected

President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday called for both chambers of parliament to hold an extraordinary session in order to pass legislation that would create small innovative enterprises at universities.

He also accused the government and parliament of “lack of coordination” after the Federation Council voted against a bill he backed with the prime minister on Monday.

“I asked the leadership of the Federation Council to hold one more session. … I will sign this law, and it will go into effect,” he said, RIA-Novosti reported.

In a May meeting with Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko, Medvedev said the law needed to be passed quickly. “It was even announced as a measure to fight unemployment, and yet there’s still no bill,” he said. On Friday, the president brought up the legislation at a meeting of his advisory State Council, saying, “I’ll remind you this measure was proposed by me.”

But the following day, the Federation Council’s last before recess, senators voted down the law by a vote of 107-14, with five abstentions.

Throughout the entire legislative process, the Finance Ministry has been protesting the bill, said Yevgeny Fyodorov, chairman of the State Duma’s Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship Committee. Ministry officials repeatedly said the initiative would weaken the state’s control over budget funds, the lifeblood of universities.

The Finance Ministry tried to block the law before it was passed by the Duma, and when that failed they took their effort to the Federation Council, a senator said, adding that they voted the bill down on orders from the chamber’s leadership. The ministry complained that the bill directly contradicted the Budget Code, he said.

The law was submitted to the Duma in February by a group of United Russia deputies led by First Deputy Speaker Oleg Morozov, and it was passed in a third reading on July 15. The bill would give state universities and research facilities the right to create small enterprises to test and implement the results of their work, such as computer programs.

The projects can include third parties so long as the scientific institution’s stake in its capital is no less than 25 percent.

The senators recommended that the law be revised. Khusein Chechenov, head of the Federation Council’s Education Committee, said the law contradicted the Civil and Budget codes, which is why the senators had to vote it down.

Senator Nikolai Ryzhkov compared the law to initiatives 20 years ago, when universities were first allowed to create commercial organizations.

“Half the oligarchs whose names you’re always hearing are a result of that law,” said the former Soviet prime minister. “It’s the single most corrupt law and allows for everything we create with state money to be pumped dry.”

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