In five months, the new Presidential Commission on Competition Law is expected to promote a bill to be approved by Congress. This new and temporary legislative table in its integration excluded the opposition blocs.
According to the agreement of the presidency of Congress 1-2024, this commission will be chaired by deputy Samuel Pérez, independent deputy, accompanied in the vice presidency by Jorge Castro, from Visión Con Valores (Viva), and with Jorge Mario Villagrán as secretary, of the Blue block.
“The reason for forming a Specific Commission is that we have three projects, three initiatives, and we want to be very responsible so as not to address one in particular; “We want to address all three, and according to the commission’s analysis they define which one should be promoted,” Nery Ramos, president of Congress, explained at a press conference.
The promotion of a competition law is not the first time it has been echoed in the Congress of the Republic; in the last legislature the issue was addressed and promoted, without success, by some congressmen who were promoting bills for economic reactivation.
Now, the task would be left to the tenth legislature, which is made up of 16 benches and a group of independents, following the suspension that a criminal judge made of the political party Movimiento Semilla and its 23 deputies.
Although the number of blocks is large within Congress, only eight blocks will make up the Presidential Commission on Competition Law, which began operations on February 26 and will conclude on July 31, according to the agreement of the presidency of Congress.
The blocks that make up this commission are Vision with Values (Viva), Blue, Will, Opportunity and Solidarity (Vos), National Unity of Hope (UNE), National Welfare (Good), Cabal, Victory and Commitment, Renewal and Order (I Believe). .
The opposition blocs such as Vamos, Valor, Todos, Unionista, Comunidad Elefante, Nuestros and Cambio were left out, the reason, according to the president of Congress, because they did not express interest in participating.
“We made it known to the block heads and all the groups were asked that if it was their interest they might request its integration, but we received interest from the group heads and that is why it was integrated in this way,” argued Ramos. .
They will open the dialogue
The presidential agreement appointed Deputy Samuel Pérez as leader of the commission, who announced that they hope to have a first working meeting this week.
The competition law has raised some positions among private sector groups, entities that will be invited to some of the meetings of the Presidential Commission, in order to have broad criteria for the promotion of some of the existing initiatives or, create a new proposal. .
“Yes, it is a change to the economic model of the deep country and, therefore, the Guatemalan economy has to have an adaptation process; We have to have a responsible and technical discussion,” said Pérez.
Currently there are three legislative initiatives that seek to create a competition law, according to the data of the congressmen, so they will analyze each of them.
The Will, Opportunity and Solidarity (VOS) bloc, made up mostly of former UNE deputies, had already promoted an initiative of this type, and according to deputy Orlando Blanco, they will seek to ensure that this proposal gets the support to be approved.
“We have the best-ruled initiative, it is the one we did when deputy Carlos Barreda was there; That is the most technically supported. It is a complex issue, we must seek a political agreement but to the extent that we can promote legislation; In that framework, we are going to support what we already have,” said Blanco.
Reject exclusion
The way in which the commission was created to analyze a competition law was not the best, at least that is what deputy Napoleón Rojas, deputy head of the opposition bloc, Vamos, believes.
“It is a bad way to not include all the parties, they should include all the blocks so that they can discuss the competition law as in the ordinary commissions,” argued Rojas.
The deputy head of the Vamos bloc added that a discussion of this type should be discussed by everyone: “this is an important law that has been discussed for years in Congress, so it should be discussed by everyone,” he insisted.
In this regard, Pérez said that the blocks that are not part of the table can no longer be included: “not at this moment, that is the integration of the commission; However, we are going to be open to receive your proposals,” he added.
The Vamos bloc already acted before the Constitutional Court (CC) when the Board of Directors of Congress intended to give ordinary commissions to the independent deputies elected by Movimiento Semilla and the Court agreed with them. Now, they will analyze with their lawyers whether this appointment does not have some type of contradiction with constitutional criteria.
“We are going to review the law, because I understand that no one can be president of any commission as an independent deputy, these are laws that we approved in 2016 and today they must be respected,” Rojas insisted.
The president of Congress, Nery Ramos, on the subject said that there would be no problem, since it is a presidential commission and not an ordinary one, indicating that it has the approval of the legal team of Congress, an argument that Pérez also supported.
“In reality, some deputies are prohibited from joining the Board of Directors or chairing work committees due to the conditions we are in at Semilla, -but- this is not a work committee or a commission that the Plenary creates, it is a mission that the presidency designates. a deputy or group of deputies is different,” said Pérez.
The integration
The new commission destined to analyze the promotion of a Competition Law for Guatemala will have the presence of 11 deputies, who have until July 31 to complete the task.
- Samuel Pérez, president, independent deputy
- Jorge Castro, vice president, deputy of Viva
- Jorge Mario Villagrán, secretary, deputy of Azul
- Jairo Flores, VOS deputy
- José Inés Castillo, deputy of UNE
- César Dávila Córdova, deputy of Bien
- Julio Héctor Estrada, Cabal deputy
- Juan Carlos Rivera, deputy of Victoria
- Cristian Álvarez, representative of Creo
- Darwin Lucas Paz, UNE deputy
- César Amézquita del Valle, Viva
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