MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine idea to move the capital to north of the country closer to Pacific basin

Lawmaker Dominguez is behind the idea which he plans to promoted during 2015

The president of the Lower House, and Victory Front lawmaker Julián Domínguez affirmed that Argentina's capital should be moved to the north. It is not the first time that this kind of project is presented: when Ricardo Alfonsín was president during the 80's, he proposed to transfer the nation’s capital to Viedma, a town located in the southern province of Río Negro.

 “We have to re-think Argentina and reconsider if this City (Buenos Aires) should be our capital”, stated Domínguez during a television interview.

In addition, he defended an alternative based on a sea exit, and pointed that “Nestor Kirchner changed Argentina’s national interests and opened them to the Pacific, to the members of the Mercosur and Unasur.”

However, the former Governor of Santa Fe Hermes Binner rejected the statements and answered: “I do not think that the Capital should be transferred, but the state. That is what must be moved”.

”I'm convinced that this model of (Argentine) State was conceived 200 years ago with the capital in the port, and let me remind you that the countries with great projects and ambitions do not have their capitals in ports. Colonies have their capitals in the ports“, added Dominguez.

Apparently Dominguez is planning to launch his idea in 2015, and for that purpose will be touring Argentina. He added that a capital in the north of the country will make it easier to have links with the great Pacific basin.

And the idea of the Argentine capital in the north would force us to think ”about a channel that irrigates six million hectares and thus allow for the 60 million tons additional planned for 2020. We must take advantage of the potential of the whole country“.

While describing Buenos Aires as a ”marvelous, captivating“ city, Dominguez said that having all official activities in the Argentine capital limits ”the overall vision“ to the world for Argentines.

Alfonsin's ideas failed and collapsed in the midst of another economic crisis and power outages which would force him to advance the electoral calendar and anticipate the handing of office to Carlos Menem. At the time Alfonsin said that ”the Second Argentine Republic had to grow southwards, towards the sea and the cold”.