10/09/2020 4:47 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 10/09/2020 4:47 PM
The national government clarified that any attempt to modify the questioned federal co-participation regime will have to remain in a waiting period until the health crisis that the coronavirus installed is defined and a way out is found for the drama that drags the Argentine economy.
This was pointed out by the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, in the report that he presented days ago in the National Senate.
"The current framework of uncertainty as a result of the health, economic and social emergency necessarily postpones the discussion," he said.
Cafiero spoke before a question raised by Senator Carlos Marino, from the Radical Civic Union (UCR).
"
Is it being considered to open an instance that allows to rebuild the floor established by the Federal Tax Coparticipation Law?
" Inquired the radical referent, according to the document that the Casa Rosada presented in the upper house.
Marino's proposal is not accidental: the current system of coparticipation is the one that was provisionally established in 1988 and later adapted with circumstantial changes.
In addition, most of the governors were enthusiastic about the possibility of reopening the discussion after the steps taken by the Casa Rosada to withdraw funds from the Federal Capital.
"We need to reopen the dialogue on the distribution of resources to avoid any type of favoritism in the distribution of funds or projects," claimed the 19 ruling party leaders in the letter they signed to support the advance of President Alberto Fernández against the administration of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
I thank the governors who supported the creation of the Fiscal Strengthening Fund for the Province of Buenos Aires.
It is just one step in the construction of a true federalism that begins to correct the imbalances of our country.
pic.twitter.com/VP2FldGTRs
- Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) September 10, 2020
That order fell on deaf ears, as the chief of ministers recently confirmed.
In addition to the social, health and economic difficulties, the debate to reform the co-participation scheme
is more complex than that required to change the National Constitution
, as recognized by Silvina Batakis, the Secretary of Provinces of the Ministry of the Interior.
"Sometimes one believes that it is much easier to reform the Constitution than the co-participation regime," said the Interior Minister, Eduardo "Wado" De Pedro, who is in charge of the conversations with the governors.
In principle, the changes require the endorsement of all governors, the National Congress and the provincial legislatures.
Perhaps that is why what was established with the 1994 constitutional reform, when a two-year term was imposed to design a definitive regime, is still not fulfilled.
Although the discussions were postponed, the Fernández government acknowledged that "the current federal co-participation regime has serious deficiencies in terms of the distribution of tax resources."
As Cafiero stated in the Senate, "there are regions with very low relative income, with a great contribution to federal revenue and the national productive structure, but with a marked under-representation in the distribution of what is produced by the taxes in question."
"Although there are many regions of our country that receive less resources than they should receive from any point of view, the Province of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires stand out as the two antagonistic examples where injustice in the distribution of federal taxes becomes more visible, "he completed.