LyrArc Article Gist
Medvedev set up athink tank last year with Igor Yurgens as head , which was to come with new ideas for Rusian economy and foreign relations. He called for Russia to change course and work with the US and Europe t o work its way out of the crisis. T do this he told a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, that Russia should create dialogue with the people, and experts should be brought into the discussions, and the government guys need to dialogue with both the people and these experts inside Russia and abroad. The suggestion is that policy should come out of vigorous discussion, and the government guys should consult, listen and they should win honestly in the discussions in this policy debate or change course as necessary. On Georgia and Ukrainian gas supplies cutoff, these wounds he says should be healed by making symbolic gestures to Europe and the USA, like the one that Vice President Biden made, in saying in Munich that the US needed to press the reset button in its relations with Russia. The Russian government says that the economy will contract by 2.2% in 2009.