Actualidad Colombiana IN ENGLISH

The FTAA Round Back in Colombia

Carlos Rodríguez Díaz
President of the Central Union of Workers

The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), in our opinion, is more than just a single trade agreement, since it incorporates a range of mechanisms that, as a whole, take away rights from governments and give them to foreign companies in the areas of investments, non-discrimination, intellectual property rights, market access, public biddings, and flexibility of services.

In this sense, the FTAA guarantees the transformation of privileges into rights for the transnational companies, which would be guaranteed on the part of legislative instruments. This turns the FTAA into the law of the Republic, giving it a greater legal hierarchy than all secondary legislation of the Andean countries.

Now What? The Re-Election of Bush and the Future of Plan America and the FTAA

CÉSAR A. RODRÍGUEZ GARAVITO*

The Republicans swept the presidential and congressional elections this past November 2nd in the United States, thanks to the conservative religious vote of the center and the south of the country, provoking one obvious question: with a second mandate for President Bush and Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate, what will the repercussions be for Colombia? In particular, what will the effect be on the subjects that have dominated the recent agenda of relations between both countries, that is to say, regarding Plan Colombia and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA)?

The Art of Budgeting

JAIRO BAUTISTA
ASSESSOR OF THE CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC

It is no surprise to anybody that the budget reflects the political priorities of particular interest groups in a society – that is the essence of the budget, at least in the self-appointed Western democracies, of which we are integrally a part. The problem arises when the budget reflects only the interests of the greatest economic and political powers of a society and excludes the rest in an act of tyranny and anti-democracy that would make even a dictator envious.

In Colombia lives a dictatorship of a new type: a fiscal dictatorship, and the recent 2005 budget approval is constituted as follows: it appears exaggerated in its amount in light of the realities of our economy, increases the dependency of the public debt and, additionally, dedicates a good part of its resources to the payment of the contracted debt and to military expenditures. It is obviously a budget that reveals the interests of the powerful: a national and external financial class that absorbs 35% of the public budget in onerous service to the debt, but that also benefits from the so-called social cost that they themselves intermediate; and a powerful political, industrial and cattle class that is obnubilada by the myopic idea that the problem of security and the institutions is FARC and that any resource that is used in that war will directly benefit it.

True Lies?

The Uribe government is not publicly releasing statistics that may damage the re-election campaign. Therefore, the resignation of Caballero must be interpreted as a step toward the total manipulation of information in a country going bad... despite what the statistics say

JAIRO BAUTISTA
Congressional Assessor of the Republic

Two recent events brought the National Department of Statistics (DANE – the government institution that produces most of the economic and social information in the nation) to the attention of the country. First, the exit today of ex-director César Caballero, following pressure by the government regarding a survey of citizen perceptions of security in the four major cities of the country. The success of 'negotiating' the results of this survey with the president led to Caballero offering his resignation, an event which reveals what months ago was just a generalized suspicion: the government pressured DANE to manipulate the survey results.

Taxation Reform 2004

JAIRO BAUTISTA
PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
ASSESSOR OF THE CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC

The candidate Uribe, upon presenting his first tax reform, promised that new taxes would not be necessary to maintain the level of state spending. He has failed, again, to fulfill this promise. Nevertheless, this time a project of bigger ambition has appeared, directed mainly at increasing the collections of IVA.

The structural reform vow will be for later, because right now the plan is to get more money so that again the candidate Uribe, hoping to get approved a law allowing for the immediate re-election of the president, has a substantial check with which to finance his untiring campaign in all the points of the country. The budget approved for next year is a sample of this, and the resources for this "mega-campaign" will come from the pockets of the poorest.

What Does the U.S. Want in the FTAA?

The Puerto Rico round coming up this week will not have any great surprises, at least not after the United States announced it will not be increasing its import of agricultural products

JAIRO BAUTISTA
Public Accountant Universidad Nacional
– Congressional Assessor of the Republic

The recent round in Lima left bitter experiences and lessons for those sectors of the Colombian economy believing faithfully that the commercial agreement with the United States would be beneficial. First of all, the North American negotiators presented their intentions, clear in principle, with respect to intellectual property, which go beyond including the Doha Round of the OMC and any national regulation in the matter. Secondly, the North Americans are not going to yield as far as agricultural protection is concerned and will harden their position with respect to the non-tariff barriers. Thirdly, the subject of U.S. income will not be up for discussion, since, for them, it is a matter of national, not trade, security.

A 'Fatal' Decision Shakes the Economic World

Social rights are ignored under the fiscal deficit or budgetary failure argument. The monetary economy will have to give way to the social economy. The fulfillment of social rights, their effectiveness – and more if they are to reach a 'a self-respecting age' – cannot be subordinated to the 'rationality' of mathematical finance

MIGUEL EDUARDO CÁRDENAS RIVERA

Constitutional remedies for a sick economy?

When this past August 10th saw the C-754 judgment of the Constitutional Court declare as unconstitutional Article 4 of Law 860 of 2003, making retroactive from 2004 to 2008 the 'acquired right' to the transitional system established by Law 100 of 1993, the Home Minister, Alberto Carrasquilla, said sharply: “That seems fatal because Congress provided a democratic debate, explanations of the case were made, all the details were given and they decided to wait until 2008 for the transitional system”. And in his consternation Carrasquilla announced that the government will present a new pension reform to be given free to the pensional transitional system, declared unexecutable by the Constitutional Court, because "we are going to continue insisting on the transition for a third time".

Atlanta: the second round of the FTAA

The return of the negotiation in Atlanta is the same as what we saw in Cartagena: little information, little consultation, a lot of pressure and few concrete results for the Andean countries

JAIRO BAUTISTA
Advisory Congress of the Republic

The results and the development of the installation of the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) in Cartagena promised that the conversations and agreements produced in the Atlanta round would be ultrasecret and a matter of the most effective maneuver of disinformation capable outside the national government. In effect, the results are not known even for those sectors that have been defending the FTAA with the United States.

Nevertheless, much worrisome data has filtered through to the mass media about the Atlanta negotiations and which we will now analyze:

FTAA with the USA: beginning of the end?

WILSON ALFONSO BORJA DÍAZ
Council Representative

Beyond the various news items and the secrecy surrounding the negotiations of the Free Trade of the Americas [FTAA, but TLC in Colombia] in Cartagena, there are unreported facts that are highly worrisome for the country.

First of all: in Colombia it is not possible to be question sensitive subjects like the country's trade policy. The events in Cartegena demonstrate this clearly. Members of the government’s cabinet, such as the Minister of Defense, are labelling FTAA opponents as "cave dwellers."

FTAA

TLC with the USA: The Myth of the Eternal Return

by Ángel Libardo Herreño
ILSA Researcher

The round of negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and the United States [acronym in Spanish: TLC] began May 18th in the midst of an important social mobilization. The national government responded with unusual military suppression.

The debate over whether or not to sign the TLC with the U.S. has far-reaching implications for our political economy. Most importantly, how can Colombia develop in a way that guarantees growth in production and prosperity for the people? The TLC raises the big issues of control over international relations, national sovereignty, and which compromises we are willing to make in international trade. Huge differences and geographical distances exist between our national economy and the productive capacity of the United States.

One notable difference: in the U.S., there is one tractor to every one and a half farm workers; in Colombia, there is just one tractor for each 150 farm workers. This reflects not only a technical problem in the implementation of mechanized systems in the fields – something which cannot be done extensively on the Andean mountainsides – but constitutes a big difference in the size and stature of agricultural production between the two countries. Further, the U.S. benefits from a public system of agricultural subsidies, in place for a century.