Yesterday the Argentine Congress began its new session with an address to the Legislative Assembly by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Kirchner arrived just before 11am along with her husband, the former president Néstor Kirchner. She began her address by expressing her solidarity with the people of Chile following the devastating earthquake at the weekend and said that Argentina is sending aid. The president then announced that she was repealing the Bicentennial Fund.
Kirchner announced the creation of the Bicentennial Fund in January this year using a Presidential Emergency Decree (DNU). The fund planned to take US$6.5 billion from the central banks foreign currency reserves to pay back some of the country’s remaining debt from when it defaulted payments during the economic crisis of 2001. She planned to use this new fund to pay back the debt instead of using money allocated in the national budget for this purpose. Kirchner claimed the move would allow the government to use the money in the budget for social and productive purposes.
The Bicentennial Fund met with great opposition from other political groups and resulted in Martín Redrado being removed from his position as president of the central bank. When she announced the repeal of the fund yesterday, the audience responded with loud applause.
But after announcing that the Bicentennial Fund was no more she stated that a new DNU decree had been signed which will release US$4.2 billion from the central bank to pay back the debt. La Nacion newspaper reported yesterday that the central bank had already made the transfer of $4.2 billion to the government. She said that a special commission of eight senators and eight congressmen had been created to monitor the payments from the reserve.
The president slammed the legal system for preventing the first decree, claiming that the courts had deprived her and Congress of their rights to govern and legislate. Kirchner said: “I have repealed the 2010 Decree of the Bicentennial Fund, because the degree of judicial interference has weakened the powers belonging to the legislative and executive branches of government.”
After announcing the new DNU she stated that the settlement of outstanding debt is important so that Argentina can return to global markets for the first time since the default in 2001 and start to borrow at lower interest rates. Responding to critics who had asked what would she do with the money from the central reserve she said: ”Does anybody think that you can take reserves out of the central bank and take it home and then take it to a different place? I mean, please!”
In her speech Kirchner also paid homage to the abuelas of Plaza de Mayo, who are also strong supporters of her administration and support her government’s record in encouraging the prosecution of human rights violations. She said: “Our courts should speed up the prosecution of human rights violators, so once and for all we can turn the page of this sad history, in order to have the better history that Argentina deserves.”
Kirchner’s address was broadcast on large screens outside the Congress building in Buenos Aires, attracting large crowds of people and bringing traffic to a standstill in the area.