© Pablo Cuarterolo
President Alberto Fernandez opened this March 1, 2022 his third speech before the Legislative Assembly.
For just over an hour and a half, the president gave an account of the state of the Nation and pointed out a series of issues: from health to the debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), going through the relationship with the opposition, inflation, education, the role of Justice and the legislative agenda.
In one of the sections of his presentation, Fernández dismissed the possibility of proposing a pension reform or a labor reform, understanding that the rights of those who work and retirees “cannot be altered to their detriment.”
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“There will be no pension reform. The retirement age will not be altered. Retirement is a right and must be strictly respected. If for whatever reason a person wishes to continue working after reaching the age established by law, no one, in principle , should force her to withdraw,” said the head of state.
Regarding the labor reform, he considered that “The rights of those who work cannot be altered to their detriment.” “Social justice can never be the object of negotiation. We have defended the future of Argentine men and women who work and we will defend it relentlessly,” she said.
Meanwhile, Fernández told the Legislative Assembly that inflation “is the big problem that Argentine men and women have at this time and, without a doubt, it is also the main concern and the main challenge of the Government.”
“There are many factors that affect inflation and they all have to be attacked in coordination. With the very serious problems that the Argentine economy was dragging, which were aggravated in the pandemic, and with that seriously entrenched custom in many sectors of marking prices just in case , we were not able to reduce the very high inflation that we inherited,” he said.
The PRO block withdrew from the venue due to the accusations of Alberto Fernández for the debt
The climate became tense when the President blamed the previous management for the country’s indebtedness and the PRO legislators, amid shouts and accusations, decided to leave the premises.
“In 2018, Mauricio Macri indebted Argentina to the IMF. Congress did not authorize this indebtedness and none of the money received in Argentina remained. Neither a bridge nor a highway. Only an unpayable external debt remained,” Fernández assured.
“I would have liked that the previous government had not resorted to the IMF in 2018 and much less under the conditions that I have already described,” he said, and reaffirmed that after two years of negotiations it was reached “the best agreement that could be achieved”.
On the other hand, he stated that the country is going through a “generalized and federal” recovery, which was possible due to “the high level of protection that we achieved with vaccination and because the State took care of companies in Argentina.”
AG cp