OREANDA-NEWS. May 12, 2008. President Dmitry Medvedev signed the Decree on the System and Structure of the Federal Executive Bodies of Power.

The changes stipulated in the Decree aim to give the federal executive bodies of power an effective system and structure.

The Decree’s provisions establish new ministries and reorganise a number of existing ministries. This has led to a redistribution of some functions between the different ministries and the other bodies in the executive power system.

The Prime Minister will now have seven deputies, including two first deputies.

The Decree establishes the Ministry of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy, and the Federal Agency for Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, which will come under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Communications has been reorganised as the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, while the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications is now the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Natural Resources is now the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology. The Ministry of Industry and Energy has been reorganised as the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Energy, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is now the Ministry of Economic Development.

The Federal Agency for Federal Property Management has been reorganised as the Federal Agency for State Property Management and will be responsible for the work of the special governmental fund, the Russian Federal Property Fund, including organising the sale of privatised federal property.

Six federal agencies have been abolished and their functions transferred to the relevant ministries.

The Decree stipulates that the federal ministers have the right to:

Issue binding instructions to the heads of the federal services and agencies under their responsibility;

Suspend if necessary decisions taken by these federal services and agencies (by their heads) or cancel these decisions in the absence of other procedures for their cancellation set by federal law.

The Decree contains the corresponding instructions to the Government and makes the relevant amendments to earlier presidential decrees.