MOSCOW, November 20./TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the outcome of the breakup of the Soviet Union turned out to be worse than the most negative expectations.

"The results of an inefficient economic policy in the Soviet Union also affected the political sector," Putin told a plenary session of the Russia Calling investment forum in comments on a speech by one of its participants who had drawn parallels between the crisis preceding the collapse of the Soviet Union and the internal difficulties currently facing the European Union. "However, the results of the disintegration turned out to be much worse than what people had thought and what they could have suspected in their worst expectations," Putin said.

The inefficient economic policy in the then Soviet Union "actually led to a collapse in the social sphere and had prolonged consequences in the political sphere," Putin said. At the same time, he mentioned China that has managed to combine the possibilities of central administration and the development of elements of the market economy in the best possible way. Nothing of the kind was done in the Soviet Union, he regretted.

Certain parallels can be drawn between the Soviet Union and the European Union, he said, also mentioning significant differences. The president draw attention to the fact that "the number of the decisions passed by the European Parliament that are compulsory for all countries of the European Union is bigger than the number of compulsory decisions passed by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in respect to the Soviet republics".

"Within this framework, certain parallels are appropriate and possible, although these are still different things. The Soviet Union was one whole country, rather strongly centralized, while the European Union is not such an entity," Putin added.