With the creation of the Ministry of Construction, the need for the Ministry for Nationalities disappeared, as stated by Valentina Matviyenko.

Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Valentina Matviyenko said that with the decision to create the Ministry of Construction and Housing of Russia they lost the need to establish a separate Ministry for Nationalities. She stated this today in Kazan after visiting the meeting of the Council on Intellectual Property.

“I believe that there should be an agency in a multicultural and multi-religious state like Russia, that would be engaged in the development of the basis of the government policy of ethnic relations, monitoring the situation in the regions, would make annual reports on the situation in Russia in general and in specific regions”, said Valentina Matviyenko in an interview. “This is a whole layer of serious work, which cannot be done by the by. This department must have professionals, experts, people who are able to generate ideas of government policy, and make proposals according to the development of the situation”, she specified.

Valentina Matviyenko recalled that these issues were previously dealt with by the Ministry of Regional Development of Russia. But taking into account the load and the number of functions assigned to the Ministry, the issues of international relations and national policies were not in the foreground”, as stated by Valentina Matviyenko.  “Hence, the quality of the work is affected. And it forced us to talk about the need to strengthen this work by means of possible establishment of a special federal service or a committee”, said the speaker and recalled that it had been decided to reform the Ministry of Regional Development with the assignment of some functions relating to the construction and housing sector to the newly created Ministry of Construction and Housing.

 “The establishment of a separate Ministry of Construction and Housing is correct; it should have been done long ago. Now the Ministry of Regional Development will have functions of social and economic development of the regions, government programs and national policies. I think that in this situation the Ministry of Regional Development will pay much more attention to this issue as one of the core competencies of the Ministry. Now, we no longer need a separate ministry. Because now the national policy issues are one of the main areas of the Ministry of Regional Development, and this is correct”, said Valentina Matviyenko.

She expressed the hope that “there will appear a sane person in the position of deputy minister, as well as the department which will supervise this area and professionally deal with national politics”.

 “In this situation it is the best solution that could be offered”, concluded Valentina Matviyenko.