Cabildo Abierto once again set a profile in the discussion around the government’s pension reform and, as it had anticipated, it is inflexible in its demands for the vote in Deputies. Their representatives in the special commission that will deal with the issue once again absented themselves from an informal meeting of the coalition – they had already done so in January with a meeting in Punta Ballena at the house of Daniel Peña – this time with the government authorities in charge of the project, in the run-up to his formal appearance this Tuesday.
Despite the absence agreed by the lobbyists Álvaro Perrone and Martín Sodano, the deputy Eduardo Lust did participate in the dialogue on Monday, who assured that he did so personally and not as a party representative, while he is not a member of the commission either. However, even when he affirms that he did not analyze the text in depth, he disagrees with the opinion of his co-religionists regarding the adverse electoral effect that the reform could have on the ruling party.
“From what I have seen, it does not seem to me that the Broad Front is being given a project to win the elections”said Lust to The Observerwhen asked about his partner’s statements Perrone, who had told La Diaria that the coalition is doing “the great Macri” by applying “everything unpopular when the elections approach”.
Lust maintained that “if what the FA does is throw headlines but then does not specify, its arguments are empty” and “we must ask it to fill the gaps” with data. The constitutionalist added that he also attended the meeting with the multicolored deputies the representative of Cabildo Abierto on the board of the Banco de Previsión Social (BPS), Aracelis Desiderio, who, according to Lust, “absolutely supports this reform”.
For his part, lobbyist deputy Álvaro Perrone assured The Observer that the presence of his colleague at the meeting was in a personal capacity and against the decision that the party had made. The legislator added that Lust went to ask questions at the meeting but that ideally, these questions would be asked in committee this Tuesday so that they remain in the shorthand version.
Although already anticipated since the December vote in the Senate, the tension with the Cabildo did not go unnoticed in the ruling party, which foresees a tug of war that can admit concessions from both partiesalthough –as expressed at the meeting by the Minister of Labor, Pablo Mieres, and as the drafter of the reform, Rodolfo Saldain, has already said– this does not imply “to add water to the milk”.
Already from the debate in the Senate, the National Party affirmed that the suggestions of the Cabildo were unfeasible, which ended up raising its hand in favor of the text with the commitment to advance its claims in Deputies. Those led by Guido Manini Ríos want the average to be considered for calculating the replacement rate to take the average of the last 15 years of activity, instead of the 25 years proposed by the government, considering that this “will It will produce a significant reduction in passive activities, mainly in sectors with pyramidal labor careers with significant salary growth”.
The lobbyists also oppose the AFAPs being able to invest abroad, while asking for more items to be exempted from the increase in the retirement age to 65, among other changes. From the ruling party they reiterate that these contributions are not acceptable and that any retouching of the text can be counted in millions of dollars of spending.
“Any pension reform is a system, and in any modification you have to take globality into account,” declared the representative of the Independent Party, Iván Posada. Both he and Minister Mieres stressed the fact that the pension reform “is a commitment made publicly by the coalition” and that they expect “all parties to comply with it.”
Conrado Rodríguez, from Colorado, said that “the current law establishes the possibility of choosing the average of the last ten years or the best 20 (for the calculation of the replacement rate). If the system has problems in terms of the deficit, no It would seem logical to lower it from 20 to 15 years. Those who say that it must be lowered, show the calculations. we would all like to go down to the best five years, but that is not viable,” he said.
The Herrerista deputy Juan Martín Rodríguez assured at a press conference that it does not “seem correct to formulate proposals and respond to them through the press”, alleging that the conversations with the Cabildo Abierto are ongoing and that the return to their proposals will be made “face to face “. His co-religionist Alfonso Lereté stressed on the other hand that there will be ten years of transition from one regime to the other and that the Broad Front “opposes it because it is opposition.”
The same delegation headed by the lawyer Saldain, the authorities of the BPS and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security will return to the annex of the Legislative Palace this Tuesday, this time for a formal appearance before all the parties that will be recorded in the minutes. If the internal fissures are resolved, the project should be approved “before the last cyclist starts,” as requested by President Luis Lacalle Pou.
