Sunday, March 06, 2005

President Fox's party, the PAN, is very happy with the announcement by the PRI that it has changed its party statutes to allow more private participation in the energy sector--the privatization of energy. In an article today in La Jornada, Fox's Secretary of State and a PAN presidential hopeful for 2006, Santiago Creel welcomed the change in the PRI, saying:

...que finalmente en el quinto año de gobierno de Vicente Fox Quesada el PRI se haya dado cuenta de la necesidad de abrir el sector energético y que ahora dé otro paso y nos acompañe a legislar la reforma del sector. Nunca es tarde; siempre hay tiempo para legislar...

It's never too late to legislate. Congress is in its last working session of the Fox administration, so there are going to be lots of last minute attempts to get stalled reforms passed.

The article also mentions that the President of the CCE (Consejo Coordinador Empresarial), the organization that represents several business associations, said the CCE was glad to hear of the changes in the PRI statutes and would change its lobbying strategy. The change in lobbying strategy is due to the wide variety of legislative agendas of the political parties, according to the leader of the CCE. They plan to organize their specialists into groups according to reform (taxes, energy, etc.) and then try to talk to the parties. They have formal meetings planned with each of the three largest political parties to discuss their reform agenda. Contrast this strategy with that of the unions, who are busy bickering among themselves and rarely hire private consultants to do studies to support their side of an issue.

In addition to energy reform, the Fox administration is heaving pushing a privatization of the public sector workers' pension system, administered by the ISSSTE. According to this article in La Jornada, Treasury officials have been meeting with members of the Chamber of Deputies in order to get them to support the reform proposal:

Según la Secretaría de Hacienda, los beneficios de la reforma al sistema de pensiones en el ISSSTE, manifestados en su propuesta, son los siguientes: "en un sistema de cuentas individuales, las aportaciones están ligadas a los beneficios, ya que la pensión para cada trabajador sería en la mayoría de los casos igual a sus contribuciones más los intereses; el sistema estará en equilibrio permanente y se elimina la trayectoria explosiva del déficit".

Se plantea un gancho para convencer a los trabajadores de que no abandonarán el actual sistema pensionario con las manos vacías. Se les plantea recibir un bono de reconocimiento a sus años de trabajo y servicio entregado a la administración federal.

It will be interesting to see whether Fox's administration is able to push this reform through at the last minute, too.

posted by Michelle @ 4:37 PM,

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