Less than two hours before the meeting of the Budget and Finance Commission that was going to rule on the Budget 2025, the government decided to suspend it and sent to the deputy José Luis Espert to give a press conference that left the stage open. “We have not yet reached a common point that allows us to guarantee zero deficit. For this reason, we have suspended the commission meeting that we had scheduled for today at 3 p.m. Espert said. He added that “In the coming weeks, if there is progress in this regard, the Executive Branch will evaluate the possibility of extraordinary calls for its treatment.”.
A little credible promise for governors because parliamentary times are tight: it is Wednesday, November 20 It is the last legal day to rule in the ordinary period that ends on November 30. The problem is that this Wednesday the PRO and La Libertad Avanza asked for a session to deal with a clean recorda Bullrich law of “reiteration” and allowing voting by mail for foreigners. That is, unless the blocks that want there to be a budget find a loophole to rule during tomorrow’s session, the panorama is complicated. The key to extend until December ordinary sessions or convene extraordinary The Executive Branch has it. But Espert’s press conference did not give any confidence that it will happen: he did not confirm that they will, he only said that it is “a possibility.”
The decision to suspend the budget commission was made in Casa Rosadaneither the deputies of the libertarian troop themselves knew it, nor their PRO allies. That is why the suspicions of a good part of the blocks are that Javier Milei does not want a budget for next year: he prefers to extend Sergio Massa’s 2023 contract for the second time, and in that way have completely discretionary management of public resources. The mileist mandate is adjustment until it hurts: they say that the zero deficit is not negotiated and the priority is the payment of the debt to the IMF.
The governors are not worried about that, but about the cash for their provinces. They continue to insist on five points on which the executive power does not yield. As we told last week, they ask: that the tax on liquid fuels be shared, pay off debts from the 2017 fiscal pact, public works, funds for the pension funds of the provinces and share a percentage that the former AFIP takes.
On this Tuesday afternoon, In the halls of Congress there was confusion but not despair. The governors continue to press the negotiation, but they also know that they can continue with the dynamic they had all this year. Each leader fights for his own thing at the small table with Milei officials. Many of the deputies who follow his orders They recognize that they have their own minutes where the government seals commitments for resources or public works.
In the previous weeks, several evaluated that the government wanted there to be a budget as a “signal to the markets and the IMF.” But this afternoon some legislators were joking and speculating “Maybe now that Trump is going to be there they think that doesn’t matter anymore”.
The governors and their blocks They do not rule out using the threat of rejecting the DNU that enables Caputo to renegotiate debt in dollars without going through Congress and without respecting the financial administration law. It is a decree that greatly worries the ruling party and could be a tool that ends up forcing them to finally deal with the budget. Because it would be the only way to include that power in the Minister of Economy: to do so through the so-called “law of laws” that already includes it in one of its articles.
During the afternoon of this Tuesday there will be meetings of the blocks that can finish defining a roadmap. With or without the government. Some do not rule out that the clean sheet session called for Wednesday at noon will fall.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
