After failing in the attempt of a Constituent Assembly, now Free Peru (PL) intends to destroy the economic chapter of the Constitutionwhich has allowed sustained growth and poverty reduction (in both cases with the exception of 2020, when the pandemic began).
The bench has presented project 4303/2022-CR, which proposes the change of articles 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 and 65 of the Magna Carta and seeks for the State to have a business role. In addition, it aims to change the contractual terms (for example, it eliminates legal stability) and that national investment prevails over foreign investment. Regarding the latter, today local and foreign disbursements “are subject to the same conditions.”
For the former Minister of Economy and Finance Luis Miguel Castilla, the initiative of the leftist party is “Plan B of the Constituent Assembly, whose purpose is to change the economic chapter.”
“All the articles (that they want to change) propose statism and take away legal certainty from investments. Furthermore, they coerce economic freedoms,” he added.
Likewise, he considered that the project would have a “political motive” and a strategy to tell people that “the cause continues, which would reactivate the social upheaval” that took place between December and January with great force.
Look: Construction fell 11.9% in January, according to Capeco
CONSEQUENCES
What would happen if the project were approved? The manager of the Peruvian Institute of Economy (IPE), Diego Macera, stated that a “entrepreneurial State” would mean a cost to taxpayers.
“Returning to the business state would be one of the biggest nonsense that we could undertake. Given our low institutionality in the public sector, it is impossible for public companies to operate as some expect them to. The example of Petroperú is very clear”, he added.
The IPE representative explained that various changes can be made to the Magna Carta, but none of the so-called economic chapter, because, if they did, and even more so now that there is uncertainty and conflict, “it would be worse than everything we have gone through in the last year and a half”.
“The uncertainty that would open may contract investment and economic activity. In Chile this year, for example, growth is projected negative. In this context, it would be impossible to continue reducing poverty,” Macera highlighted.
DATA
-The project indicates that with the Constitution Currently, monopolies cannot be dealt with, but article 61 indicates that the State combats all monopolistic practices and that no law or agreement “can authorize or establish monopolies.”
-The only article that they do not want to change is 64, which establishes that the State guarantees the free possession and disposal of foreign currency.
