First meeting between Nación and CABA to reach agreement on joint participation claims

The nation's Minister of Interior, Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, received this afternoon in his office at Casa Rosada a delegation from the government of the city of Buenos Aires led by the Chief of Cabinet of Buenos Aires, Felipe Miguel, and the Minister of Finance, Martín Mura, to try to reach an agreement on the percentage of the participation that intends to receive the district of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta after the cut ordered by the national government.

This was the first meeting after the parties met at the Comodoro Py courts last Thursday. On that occasion, the Supreme Court granted him 30 working days for a conciliation to be concluded and ruled that if they did not reach that point of confluence, he could take a precautionary measure requested by the Buenos Aires government.

After this first meeting at the offices of the Ministry of the Interior in Balcarce 50, it was agreed that every week this mechanism of dialogue between technical teams on both sides would be repeated “This question is a long one,” they said in the corridors of La Rosada, near Minister De Pedro.

The updated amount that the administration headed by Rodríguez Larreta requests to be returned by the Nation is 120 billion pesos. In addition, the court ordered that they report weekly on the progress of the negotiations.

The conflict began when the government cut off more than one point of partnership with CABA when it was decided to transfer security functions to the Buenos Aires orbit. First there was a decree 735 of September 2020, then a law passed in December of the same year that established a resource size. This led the Larreta government to ask the nation's Supreme Court of Justice to declare the rules unconstitutional and the payment of a sum to compensate for the loss suffered since then.

For its part, the National State questioned the legitimacy of Decree 194/2016 issued by the then President Macri in January 2016, a few days after taking office, and by which the percentage received by the Buenos Aires district of the mass of common funds had been increased from 1.40 to 3.75. For the government led by Alberto Fernández, this percentage was set in a totally arbitrary manner by the Macrista administration. Faced with the protest of some governors, Macri then set it at 3.50 in 2018.

“With the DNU, the government took 1.18% of the city's share, which went from 3.5% to 2.32%. Of this 2.32%, 1.4% corresponds to the historical level that was in place prior to the transfer of the policy. Then, the executive understands that once the law that transfers all the powers related to security is completed, the federal capital will again have the same percentage of resources that were in force until the beginning of Mauricio Macri's government, “explained a Juntos tax expert for the It changed when the first Alberto Fernández's decree was known.

The national government insists that these demands “should not be channeled through justice but in a political agreement”. The secretary of the provinces, Silvina Batakis, who was present at the court meeting last week, took to counter the request of Buenos Aires the “fine” figures that Nación has made. “We want conciliation but not surrender,” they say from the inside. They stress that on both sides there is a “will for dialogue” and that they have the support of several governors on the equitable distribution of resources from co-participation.

The four ministers of the highest court, Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Ricardo Lorenzetti and Juan Carlos Maqueda, were present at the Court. The national government was assisted by De Pedro and the city of Buenos Aires was attended by the head of government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta; his chief of staff, Felipe Miguel, his Minister of Justice and Security, Marcelo D'Alessandro and the prosecutor, Gabriel Astarloa.

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