MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Lower House votes to sanction companies operating in Falklands

The oil exploration round in the Falklands is currently drilling its third well

Argentina’s Lower House gave unanimous preliminary approval to a bill that seeks to impose sanctions on corporations operating in Argentina that may be looking to work in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands with out the approval of Argentine authorities. The bill must now be ratified by the Senate.

According to the bill any corporation operating in Argentina with links to others in the hydrocarbons industry and operating in the Falklands/Malvinas will automatically loose its licence to work in the country.

On Tuesday the bill was worked out between members of the Energy, Foreign Relations and Maritime, Fluvial and Fishing interests committees, managing to muster unanimous support from 170 members of the Lower House.

After a four hour debate the House also voted 139 to 90, to limit Argentina’s Cabinet Chief's so-called “superpowers,” giving, in this way, preliminary approval to a bill that must now return to the Senate, who had already ratified another project that established less stringent limits.

In order for the bill to become law, the Upper House must pass it with the same percentage of votes reached in the Lower House.

The opposition managed to muster quorum on its own to debate the Financial Administration law, which sought to cut down the Cabinet Chief's “superpowers” that allowed him to reassign budget items.

With 129 opposition lawmakers present, the Lower House began a few minutes after 2:30 pm for which members or the ruling party decided to join in and face them in a session that ruffled some feathers due to the matters set for debate.

“This means a leap in institutional quality and transparency for public budget reassignment” the opposition Civic Coalition Deputy, Adrián Pérez, celebrated.

On the other hand, the chief of the ruling Victory Front bloc, Agustín Rossi, complained: “This is a mistake, it's an involution. Today they recognized that we've been using less than 5%. We're in the presence of a great hypocrisy.”

“If every single time we need to reassign an item we have to ask the Congress, we could become prisoners of an opposition Congress,” Rossi said.