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After the first legislative round, the ruling party senators warm up their engines to intensify the treatment of the project that intends to cancel the debt with the IMF with the undeclared dollars abroad. The initiative revived the spirits of the K parliamentary nucleus following the approval of the agreement with the Monetary Fund, for which the bloc intends to take the debate with time and caution. Aware of the danger that the law entails that the law is approved in the Senate only to die in the Deputies, the senators of the Front of All promote, both inside and outside the bloc, that contributions be sent to them with the aim of adding supporters. Together for Change has already anticipated its rejection, but the FdT bench maintains the hope of being able to sit down to negotiate with the rest of the opposition blocks despite the fact that, for the moment, these sectors have not shown many signs of support.
“What we have to do, ultimately, is reach an agreement that allows the project to reach the Deputies. It has to get there with a minimum consensus because if not it will not prosper”, reflected one of the main swords of the FdT in the Senate. The pro-government caucus has almost no doubts that it will be able to approve the initiative that seeks to create a “National Fund for the Cancellation of the Debt with the IMF” within three weeks -which is when they estimate that the Senate will deal with the issue on the floor- since they trust that their two key allies, Alberto Weretilneck (Together We Are Río Negro) and Magdalena Solari Quintana (Misiones), will end up accompanying the project. The problem is when the half sanction reaches the Chamber of Deputies, where the parity of forces is much greater and the scenario, in principle, does not look very favorable: JxC is opposed, the left and the libertarians threaten a vote once morest , half of the Federal interbloc has already declared itself once morest it and the other half looks at the project with bad eyes.
The bloc is aware of this scenario and intends to anticipate it by trying to reach the Lower House with the highest level of political support possible, so that the efforts in the Senate are not in vain. “We have to be careful not to shoot so many shots in the air. Because many were angry following the Council of the Magistrature, when we went once morest the Court only so that later the Deputies loosen up and Massa negotiates his incorporation,” slipped an irritated official senator. He was referring to the speculation that there is regarding the possibility that the ruling party has to negotiate in Deputies the participation of the Supreme Court in the Council of the Judiciary, although not presiding over it, in order to pass the reform.
The sharp opposition of the PvC interblock represents, in principle, one of the biggest obstacles. The opposition interbloc questions the ruling party’s projects, because there are two: one creates the fund in dollars for the cancellation of the debt, the other modifies the Law of Financial Entities in order to make bank, stock market and fiscal secrecy more flexible. It is argued that they represent nothing more than “badly done covert money laundering”. Martín Lousteau was one of the opposition figures who most critically expressed himself once morest the initiative, using technicalities that led him to harshly cross paths with one of the specialists that the ruling party had brought to defend the project in the plenary of commissions. In the discussion in which Lousteau and Guillermo Wierzba got involved, the former criticized the director of Banco Nación for talking regarding capital flight when the initiative did not refer to the flight, but to assets that were abroad. Everything ended up generating discomfort even within the ruling party itself, where they agreed that the door had been opened to greater confusion.
“We have to get out of the ideological slogans and the discursive biri biri and emphasize what the project supports: going to charge those who evade,” said a senator from the ruling party closest to Albertism. Along these lines, one of the FdT senators, Edgardo Kueider, presented a series of modifications with the aim of giving the project “greater technical precision.” The senator from Entre Ríos proposes to “change the focus”, moving it away from the idea that it represented a new tax to frame it in the criminal tax law. Kueider’s proposal, in addition to suggesting that the fund in dollars be permanent, maintains establishing a 25 percent fine on undeclared assets where the official project maintains 20 percent during the first six months and then 35. The bloc, which is encouraging proposals to be sent to it, trusting that this position will allow it to achieve greater consensus, will analyze the changes these days.
The date officially set for the next call is April 20, which is when the plenary of the Budget and General Legislation commissions will meet once more. Although some wanted to meet earlier, many of the senators who travel from the interior found it difficult to get flights so close to Easter, so it was agreed to meet in two weeks. This time JxC will bring its own specialists, such as deputy Jimena La Torre and lawyer Daniel Sabsay, and the FdT will do the same once more with, among others, the journalist from Página12, Alfredo Zaiat. Until then, the ruling party will focus on trying to continue adding political support. The gesture of support from the leaders of the CGT, the CTA and the unions that make up the Front and the Union Current represented, in this sense, a strong accolade and in the FdT they trust they can continue adding adhesions that help them “military” the project “on the street”.
