For Senator Ricardo Lagos Weber (PPD), in the short term, the citizen security agenda should be strengthened, but at the same time “continue proposing measures to deal with economic recovery, given the sustained rise in price levels, if well inflation has gone down, in any case you have to go to the aid of families”.
In this sense, in conversation with CNN Chile, the PPD parliamentarian also considered “structural” important, moving forward once and for all and reaching agreements for pension and tax reform, in addition to the project that reduces the working day to 40 hours.
“We must focus on what is urgent and what is structurally important, otherwise we will not advance the transforming agenda of the government of President Gabriel Boric,” he said.
Senator Lagos Weber stressed that the 40-hour project was unanimously approved by the Chamber’s Labor Committee, and announced that the initiative will go to the Finance Committee in the coming days. “It comes by consensus, gradualities were established for the implementation of the project, with specifications and special treatment for certain working hours,” the legislator explained.
The 40-hour project “was unanimously approved by the Labor Commission of all political sectors,” stressed Lagos Weber, noting that the project managed to “change, mutate, be modified, to make it viable.” This, he argued, ” It was done talking, some will say negotiating, others will say reaching agreements, and some more critical will say trading, while others like me are more optimistic with a sense of reality seeking gradual projects to make them viable”.
“My lesson is that in the tax and pension reform, we are going to have to agree in this way, otherwise there is no project that is viable,” he said.
“Slight Tension”
Senator Lagos Weber maintained that between now and May there will be a “slight tension” over the election of the Constitutional Council, within the framework of the new constituent process, but he believes that the Government “has all the conditions.”
President Boric, he assured, “except for a couple of decisions that I may not share, for the most part, he has made correct decisions, be it in matters of foreign policy, economic matters, social support, and in trying to expand his platform of political support by incorporating Democratic Socialism”.
The latter is valued positively by the PPD senator, for whom it was a “tremendous adjustment” of the cabinet on September of last year, with the arrival of Ana Lya Uriarte to the Segpres and Carolina Tohá to the Interior.
Now, regarding a possible new cabinet change, he said, “clearly there will be a ministerial adjustment and sub-secretaries, to give a new impetus to the Government.”
In this sense, he expressed, “I feel that the only way to move forward is to agree with the opposition to carry out the projects.”
It is crucial, in his opinion, “to move forward on the agenda without losing focus.”
“I see a president committed to that. President Boric’s tone is adequate for what is to come, beyond unfair criticism and unforced errors, ”he commented.
And he concluded: “I want us to be a government that carries out projects on which citizens say ‘they are listening to me'”.
