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“Even today we are still negotiating aspects related to the formalization of that agreement, which I hope to conclude shortly,” Argentine President Alberto Fernández said of the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund in his speech at the opening of the Congress sessions. “As of this week, we hope that it will be in the hands of the legislators to consider the approval of the agreement that is reached with the IMF staff,” added the president.
The Argentine government is negotiating to refinance the loan of more than 44,000 million dollars granted by the agency in 2018 during the government of its predecessor, Mauricio Macri. A month ago, Fernández himself already announced a preliminary agreement with the Fund and today he could announce the details of the agreement, but he admitted that the details are still being finalized. “Taking into account the magnitude of the commitments that Argentina assumed, and that we seek to modify, defending the rights of our people demands much more than five minutes,” Fernández justified after months of negotiations.
Argentina is seeking a credit agreement with extended facilities, with a payment schedule from 2026 to 2034. In exchange, it commits to reduce its fiscal deficit from the current 3% of GDP to 0.9% in 2024. Under the current agreement, Argentina should pay about 18,000 million dollars this year and another 19,000 million in 2023, a horizon that the government considers impossible to meet.
“The new agreement will not accumulate new debt to that already taken by the previous government. It is a refinancing of that loan,” he remarked. On the subsidies to the rates of public services that govern the country, especially gas and electricity, one of the most sensitive points of the agreement, Fernández announced that they will be withdrawn in a segmented manner and promised that prices will not rise above salary increases.
The agreement, he said, will not put an end to the criminal lawsuit that he is promoting to establish “the truth and responsibilities” about the indebtedness, an affirmation that motivated the withdrawal from the parliamentary chamber of most of the opposition legislators. In a statement, the opposition coalition Together for Change questioned Fernández for what it described as a “provocative and violent attitude against the opposition, which is unacceptable for a government that seeks an agreement from all.”
In addition, the opponents, who displayed Ukrainian flags on their seats, claimed that the ruler “did not clearly condemn the expansionist action of the Russian Federation” against that country, although at the beginning of his speech he made reference to the war and remarked that “the world peace is disturbed” by the “military invasion” produced by Russia.
lgc (afp / efe)