10 December 2002 00:00
RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN BUSINESS WORLD REPRESENTATIVES MEET WITH NATO SECRETARY GENERAL GEORGE ROBERTSON AT AUDIT CHAMBER OF RUSSIA
2002-12-03
On December 9 a meeting between Lord George Robertson, NATO Secretary General, staying on an official visit to Moscow, and the representatives of the Russian and foreign business world took place at the Audit Chamber of the Russian Federation. The meeting was organized with the cooperation of the Chamber by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the European Business Club, which incorporates Europe's leading entrepreneurs working in Russia.
The selection of the Audit Chamber as the site for such a representative meeting, Sergei Stepashin, its Chairman and the President of the European Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (EUROSAI), said in his speech, is evidence of the acknowledgement of its role in the system of international financial control, of its contribution to the fight against money laundering, corruption and misappropriation of budget funds as a possible source of financing for international terrorism, counteraction against which has today united many countries.
The creation in 1995 of the Audit Chamber, its head went on to say, was due to the processes occurring in Russia of market transformation and the emergence of a civil society. One of the chief objectives of the Audit Chamber is to enhance the transparency of the financial system of Russia, which creates prerequisites for its more active integration into the world economy and the attraction of foreign direct investment.
The Audit Chamber of Russia, Stepashin stressed, also makes its contribution to international cooperation directed to combating global threats. Thus, a meeting of heads of supreme audit institutions of the G8 states was held in Moscow this spring to discuss concrete approaches to organizing cooperation in the prevention of funding for international terrorism. Cutting off the channels of financial support for international terrorism, Stepashin said, is an important aspect of cooperation by the Audit Chamber with the supreme audit institutions of the NATO countries. For its part, NATO, he said, should also adopt more serious, pragmatic and substantive forms of collaboration in fighting the financing of international terrorism.
The Audit Chamber, its Chairman went on to say, participates in international projects linked to combating global threats. Thus, in cooperation with the United States General Accounting Office preparations are being carried out for joint verification of the construction of a chemical weapons destruction facility which is financed by the US administration. The possibility is now being discussed of participation by the Audit Chamber in the implementation of the G8 Global Partnership program adopted in Kananaskis, which presupposes a possible writing off of a part of Russia's foreign debt against the funds spent by it on the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. An experience has also been amassed in checks on the efficacy in the use of foreign loans.
In conclusion Stepashin expressed hope that discussions within the walls of the Audit Chamber would make their contribution to the further development of the Russia-NATO dialogue.
Speaking to the participants in the debate, Lord Robertson said that the NATO bloc had over the last ten years undergone substantial transformation. At the base of this process lies its desire to support the new democratic states which have emerged in Europe, including Russia. As evidence of the changes occurring in NATO its Secretary General named the establishment of the Russia-NATO Council and the fact that NATO has no intention to place nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the territories of new member states of NATO. Russia, Robertson noted, is for NATO an integral participant of the process of the search of answers to the new realities. A Russia prosperous and feeling safe and secure, the NATO Secretary General concluded, is the exact aim, toward achieving which our joint efforts must be directed.
In the course of the debate Robertson stressed that the interaction of the business circles of the NATO countries and Russia, mutually beneficial cooperation between them, and the invigoration of the West's investment activity in the vast Russian market are the prerequisites for the creation of a framework for the security of Europe and its prosperity.
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