Ignacio Ortelli
11/08/2020 16:02
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/08/2020 16:02
On Friday afternoon
Alberto Fernández
and
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta
posed together again for the photo while they discussed the continuity of prevention measures for the coronavirus in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA (. But there is an issue that again
generates tension
between the two after the impact of the President's decision to move forward with the removal of the coparticipation from the City. This is the
"Fiscal Consensus 2020"
that the Government proposed to sign the provinces and authorize the governors to raise taxes in exchange for, among other issues, desisting from making lawsuits or resigning those already initiated to the Nation.
This clause is the one that most worries the Buenos Aires head of government, who rejects any option that forces him to set aside the demand for co-participation that must be defined by the Supreme Court of Justice, and has
already let it be known that if there are no changes "no" will sign it
.
Although it emerged in the last hours
, the Government has been working for almost a month on the fiscal pact.
Alberto F. even led some informal talks with governors and the Interior Minister, Eduardo "Wado" de Pedro, sent the draft to the provinces to hear their counterproposals.
In the City they say that the text only arrived this week.
A priori, it is a project that
generates relief for governors
because it proposes a new addendum to the 2017 Fiscal Consensus, signed during the government of Mauricio Macri, which contemplated a significant effort by the provinces in fiscal matters, through a strong and staggered reduction of taxes.
But there are clauses, as
Clarín said days ago, that generate noise.
One of them is "B", in national tax matters, which commits the provinces to approve, before December 31 of this year, the bill on the wealth tax.
Alberto Fernández with Buenos Aires mayors, when he announced on September 9 in Olivos the cut to the City.
However, in the case of the City, it is clause "C", in
"matter of judicial processes"
, which set off the alarm.
There the provinces are asked to "abstain for a period of two years from
initiating legal proceedings, and desist from those already initiated
, relating to the Federal Tax Co-participation regime, to specific allocation of resources and transfers of powers, services or functions, for events prior to the entry into force of this Consensus ".
The City, after the removal in the co-participation that Fernández ordered by decree, initiated a lawsuit on which the Supreme Court of Justice must decide.
And
Rodríguez Larreta warned that he is not willing to give up on that bid, which implies $ 45 billion by 2021
.
"Horacio already said that if they make him desist from the lawsuit,
he will not sign it or crazy,
" they assure
Clarín
from the Buenos Aires government headquarters on Uspallata street.
And they repeat a message that the City had already delivered in the summer when the Government threatened to remove it: "If they pressure us a lot, we leave the 2017 Consensus (the original, prior to all the addenda signed by the changes in the macroeconomy) and not We would have problems because the City does not have a debt with the Nation and the compensation that was granted to the provinces for the readjustment made to Buenos Aires by the Suburban Fund would not be lost either. "
The head of the Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, when he announced that he would go to Court for the pruning of the partnership.
Photo Germán García Adrasti.
If it leaves the fiscal pact,
the City would join San Luis
, which was the only province that had refused to agree to Macri's request to reduce taxes.
It still seems difficult, but it is not far-fetched.
There is another axis that worries Larreta and it also has to do with the bid for co-participation.
It is subsection 6, of point A, in which the signatories agree that the transfers of powers or services that the Nation makes to the districts will be accompanied with resources whose financing "will come from the National Treasury, without giving rise to transfers through the Law 23,548 (Federal Coparticipation) ".
Precisely the mechanism that Macri used in 2016
when he transferred the Federal Police to the City,
In the Buenos Aires government they warn that making that concession
would be to validate the law that promotes Kirchnerism
in Congress - it has a half sanction - and fixes the expense that corresponds to the City, which Larreta will eventually also seek to challenge before the Justice.
Although Alberto F. and Rodríguez Larreta did not speak on the subject at the meeting due to the definition of the quarantine they maintained on Friday, the City's reaction did not go unnoticed at Casa Rosada.
In the Government they relativize the draft, they assure that changes are open and that the only clause that is non-negotiable is the one that promotes a
"responsible indebtedness"
and establishes that "the provinces will not be able to increase the stock of debt denominated in foreign currency with respect to the securities registered as of December 31, 2020 ".
"It is a mechanism to avoid the repetition of past mistakes that led many provinces to contract unviable debts and it is a point in which there is no space to yield," they justify from the Interior Ministry.
There is
not only the City
: there are districts that have royalties in foreign currency and see this clause with good eyes, but they ask that a limited term be incorporated: "It cannot be forever," they say.