In the midst of the announcement of the high tariff on gas and electricity services, the senators are in full negotiation with the Executive of Javier Milei on the Bases law. The currency is energy. Dams, subsidies and royalties are spoils of exchange as the expenses faced by Argentine households increase days before the arrival of winter.
Negotiations are intense in the Upper House. Union por la Patria’s approach strategies towards the senators of the collaborationist blocs with the Government are beginning to diversify. Especially when the focus is on those who may still have unpredictable behavior. The fact is that the coordination achieved by the opposition in the Deputies can serve as a precedent when it comes to voting on the Bases law, now that the Executive has once again disregarded the task of Congress.
The Kueider factor in the Senate
One of the senators on whom all the eyes of his co-provinces are focused is the man from Entre Rios Edgardo Kueidersignatory of the opinion “in dissent”, a wild card to escape criticism, but which does not erase the fact of having added one more signature to the libertarian text.
For two weeks now, the PJ of the province of Entre Ríos, governed by Macrista Rogelio Frigerio, has been demanding that the senator who entered his seat in 2019 with the ticket of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner vote against the Bases law. Kueider was one of Alberto’s swords in his intern with Cristina in the former vice president’s own territory of influence. But then he also ended up fighting with the president.
Already in February 2023, Kueider broke the ruling bloc of the Frente de Todos and formed the Unidad Federal bloc with Carlos “Camau” Espínola from Corrientes and Alejandra Vigo from Córdoba. This January, under the leadership of Victoria Villarruel, he achieved the presidency of the Constitutional Affairs commission, head of the plenary session that debated the Bases law.
In February Kueider voted against Javier Milei’s DNU, and now he is, along with the radical Martín Lousteau, a target of the negotiators of the changes that can remain in place in the Deputies, if they are approved. They consider that Milei needs approval because his level of popularity is being measured by the IMF. Under this hypothesis, the negotiators on both sides of the Lost Steps room enthusiastically see the possibility of “some text” being sanctioned, no matter how changed it may be.
The window of opportunity
In that window of opportunity that the opposition has in the Senate, they negotiate what these strategic changes will be. Everyone points out that it is removed from the chapter of the Large Investment Incentive Regime because, as argued by the SME businessmen during the plenary session of commissions, it eliminates the national industry and promotes the looting of natural assets.
In this context, in Entre Ríos they are looking closely at Kueider’s negotiations with the Executive. The senator claims to be negotiating the provincialization of the management of the Salto Grande dam, which contributes all its energy production to the national electrical system and whose subsidies, they complain, are concentrated in the AMBA and are not directed to the people of Entre Ríos, the producing province. .
Other sources assure that Kueider barely managed to sell the energy more expensively to Cammesa, the national energy centralizing company. Another source, with more evil, alleges that he barely achieved a promise to locate his own people in Anses or any national organization that remains in the province, after the massive closure of branches.
Entre Ríos always wanted the provincialization of Salto Grande, created through a treaty with Uruguay in 1946 and whose management is binational. In 1998 a law was passed to provincialize it, but Carlos Menem vetoed it because Uruguay said it only made treaties with national states and not provincial ones. Now it is a bargaining chip for a law that foreignizes energy production.
The votes of Santa Cruz
Meanwhile, in Santa Cruz, doubt grows about the vote of José María Carambia, who also signed the opinion. The senator was Mauricio Macri’s man in those payments, but then he quarreled. He is a member of the Por Santa Cruz bloc and came to its seat in January in an eclectic alliance with the Peronist governor of union extraction Claudio Vidal.
Like Kueider, Carambia also voted against the DNU, but would now vote in favor of the Bases law in exchange for a two-point increase in royalties to the mining provinces, which would go from receiving 3% to 5%, according to was written in the draft fiscal package.
Other points under negotiation is the reactivation of the Néstor Kirchner and Jorge Cepernic dams, stopped since December and dependent on the national government reactivating contact with China to send the necessary funds. The partial and not total privatization of the Río Turbio Carboniferous Field (YCRT) was also negotiated.
And finally, Governor Claudio Vidal is negotiating the management of the mature wells to which YPF no longer pays attention after the discovery of Vaca Muerta. The province demands the environmental liability, the guarantee of jobs and the continuity of production, at least until September.
Another one that caught the attention of all her peers was the woman from Neuquén. Lucila Crexellwho – according to journalist Carlos Pagni – achieved an embassy in the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, a version that, until now, the senator has not come out to deny.
