The Chamber of Deputies debates from 2:20 p.m., within the framework of a special session, the bill that supports the agreement with the IMFfrom opinion that won broad political support on Wednesday night after intense negotiations.
The session, which began with the presence of 129 deputies in the room, an exact number for the quorum, would last until midnight.
At the opening, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Serge Massaspecified that the agreement with the IMF will be “the only topic on the agenda of the session” and asked the deputies that the debate be “with the utmost respect and level possible, taking into account the importance of the issue, since it is the first time in democratic history that an issue of these characteristics is debated in Congress”.
Minutes after the session started, a group of left-wing protesters who gathered in the square began to throw stones and burn tires in the area, after which members of the Police of the city of Buenos Aires put up a shield in front of the Congress building and began an eviction operation.
The debate
In the first presentation, the president of the Budget and Treasury Committee, Charles Heller (Front of All), assured that “This government, due to its principles, would never have resorted to the IMF but instead received a real time bomb and had to sit down to negotiate” with the international organization.
“There is a government that, due to its principles, would never have appealed but that received a real time bomb and should have sat down to negotiate,” emphasized the legislator when expounding on the premises in the special session of the Chamber of Deputies.
In this framework, Heller maintained that the agreement “does not respect the typical aspects of orthodoxy that have prevailed in other understandings” although he said, “There is nothing to celebrate”.
Among the first exhibitions, the national deputy for the Front of All of the province of Buenos Aires, Alicia Apariciosaid today that “there is nothing to celebrate” and added: “Today there will be no winners”.
In her speech, the legislator praised President Alberto Fernández’s decision to send the agreement to Congress because “it gives back to the Legislative Branch its power in the matter and grants greater institutionality” and assured that “this agreement is the only one possible given the circumstances that Argentina lives today”.
In this sense, he added that the country “cannot take charge of the accumulated payments” and stressed that “the favorable difference in the export balance that existed last year is not even enough to pay the maturity of 19 billion dollars that comes”.
For his part, the national deputy of the UCR for Mendoza, Lysander Niericonsidered that the agreement with the IMF “is born obsolete” and is “not very transparent”, arguing that “it does not solve the problems of our country”.
For the legislator, “even meeting the goals leaves our country in December 2023 in a situation of greater macro imbalances than that observed in 2019” and said that “it does not solve the problems of our country.”
