Andrey Illarionov

Andrey Illarionov, 2003.

Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov (Russian: Андре́й Никола́евич Илларио́нов, born September 16, 1961) is a Russian libertarian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

Quotes

"Q&A: Putin's Critical Adviser," 2005

In: "Q&A: Putin's Critical Adviser," at time.com by Yuri Zarakhovich, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2005.

• The economy is doing fine—if you gauge it in traditional ways. The growth of GDP is 6.2%, which is good. [...] But do we compare Russia to developed countries or to a country like China that has the GDP growth of 9%—or oil producers like Azerbaijan with 12%, or Kazakhstan with 19%. This way, we see that Russia's achievement is more than modest. Under oil windfall profits, Russia's GDP should have grown by 15% to 16% in 2005. Once you dismiss the windfall profits, you see a poor quality of the economic policy that has proven negative to the tune of losing some 9% to 10% of the GDP growth.
  • About the real picture in the Russian economy around 2005.

• When the state unraveled Yukos, officials insisted it was a single such case rather than a trend. But it soon became obvious that Yukos was not a single case, that this concerns the entire economy. [...] Yukos was a campaign, which is intensifying weekly.

• There is no such thing as a gas market prices, because there is no such thing as gas market. What they are doing to Ukraine is obvious price discrimination.
  • In response to the question: The Kremlin says it just charges market prices.

• We had doubts about the Kyoto Protocol, we wanted reasoning from our partners in the European Union, in the IPCC. Formal requests had been sent to these organizations. But we have not received responses yet, which suggests that no coherent answers can be offered. What we hear is 'it is not comprehensive responses that matter, we will not give them anyway; what is important is whether you believe us or not'

• We have received no single argument in favour of this document except political pressure. No link has been established between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. No other objective facts have been presented in recent time. The IPCC's reports in 1990 and 1995 show it clearly.

• We are close to a consensus that the Kyoto Protocol does huge economic, political, social, and ecological damage to the Russian Federation. In addition, it certainly violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, and well as the rights and freedoms of citizens in those countries which signed and ratified it.