The Government maintains its expectation of closing an agreement at any moment with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to renegotiate the debt of US$ 45,000 million with the multilateral organization contracted by the Government of Mauricio Macri, despite the abrupt change of scenery economic and geopolitical left by the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Until the last moment of the negotiations, Argentina and the IMF maintain differences on “the path to reach” the fiscal goals, which was confirmed by the spokesperson for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, during her conference last Thursday.
“Once the agreement is in place, which we hope will be in the next few hours or days, it will be sent to Congress, there will not be any kind of secret,” confirmed Cerruti.
The spokeswoman for the Presidency of the Nation announced that the agreement with the IMF will be part of the speech that Alberto Fernández will deliver on March 1 before the Legislative Assembly, along with other economic issues among which he mentioned “inflation” among the priority issues.
what are the differences
The differences between the IMF and the Government revolve around how the reduction of the fiscal deficit will be achieved officially raised, to reach 2.5% of GDP in 2022 until reaching 0.9% in 2024.
Meanwhile, alleged drafts of the numbers of the discussions circulate on the networks that the government did not come out to confirm or deny, because “they change every day, that’s why they are drafts,” said spokeswoman Cerruti.
Instead, the Government considered it important to deny the versions about a supposed pension reform.
“Retired people should be calm, there is no agreement that says we are going to stop the increase in pensions,” Fernández said on Monday as he led an act on the Atlantic Coast, although he mentioned the need to “advance further” in studying the benefits pensions that favor judges and ambassadors through special regimes.
Then the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, specified that “there will be no pension reform.”
The head of the Treasury Palace made it clear that “the mobility formula sanctioned in 2020 will be maintained, maintaining the rights that we strengthened with that law”, and that “a study will be carried out focused on the special regimes reached by law 27,546”, that reaches magistrates and officials of the Judicial Power and the Public Ministry of the Nation.
Later it was the Minister of Labor, Claudio Moroni, who added that “what is going to be done is a series of studies to improve the system in its fairness” and how to be clear about the financing “of a system that represents 52% of the National Budget,” the official told Télam.
Another of the related points and of significant importance are the final numbers in the removal of subsidies in public services, of which the Government aspires to gradually reduce.
“They ask for the rate increase, they ask that it be greater than inflation, to which we say no”sources close to the negotiations slipped.
In addition, the war between Russia and Ukraine added noise to the negotiations in this regard due to the sharp rise in commodity prices, especially oil and gas.
When asked about the consequences of the confrontation regarding Argentina’s negotiation with the IMF, the spokeswoman indicated that they intend “not to mix the issues,” and that the country continues to carry out the agreement through the usual channels. “We hope they finish soon and we are optimistic that we will soon finalize the agreement,” Cerruti said.
“We are reaching the last agreements, with respect to the smallest print we have some differences regarding the path to achieve the fiscal goals. We hope that in the next few days it will be sent to Congress”Cerruti affirmed during the usual Thursday press conference at Casa Rosada.
He also ruled out the possibility of avoiding the legislative treatment of the agreement, as was the proposal of the Civic Coalition (CC) led by Elisa Carrió.
“The area to discuss and sanction it is Congress,” said the spokeswoman for the Presidency of the Nation.
