President Gustavo Petro will install this Thursday, Independence Day, the new period of ordinary sessions of the National Congress, in which his Government will seek the approval of the social reforms that did not pass in the previous legislature.
Petro will give a speech before both houses of Congress after leading a patriotic celebration in the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina with emphasis on the recent ruling of the International Court of Justice that ruled that Nicaragua cannot extend its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles that delimit its border with Colombia.
The priority of the president and the ruling Pacto Histórico party in the new legislature will be the controversial social reforms that he was unable to approve in the past period due to the crisis in the government coalition after several center and right-wing forces expressed their discontent with the content of the bills.
“In the period of sessions that starts on July 20, the government bench and its coalition will seek to advance the social reform projects,” Senator Iván Cepeda, of the Historical Pact, said this Thursday.
Cepeda recalled that in the previous legislature the process of the pension, labor and health system reforms began, the three highly criticized by different political, economic and even social sectors, “and to these reforms is now added the reform of public education and also that of the mining code”.
Changes in education and mining
The reform of public education, which will be one of the novelties of the new legislature, proposes some changes so that teaching is a fundamental right, as well as the modification of Law 30 of 1992, which regulates higher education.
With the reform of the mining code, it is sought that the State has companies that participate in projects in this sector; that the Banco de la República be the only one that buys the gold extracted in the country; improve the exploration and production of minerals such as copper, lithium and nickel, in addition to declaring the mining industry to be of strategic national interest and social interest.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro in a file photograph. EFE/Mauricio Dueñas CastañedaThe president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, in a file photograph. EFE/Mauricio Duenas Castañeda
“These are some of the essential projects that the government bench is going to carry out since they are vital for the country, they concern structural problems that Colombian society has, they do not wait and therefore we will do our best effort so that they are approved in an expeditious and effective manner this semester,” added Cepeda.
According to the left-wing senator, this is the way “so that we can have fundamental changes in social matters in Colombia.”
However, to achieve the approval of these reforms, Petro will not only have to rebuild the relationship with parties such as the Liberal, the Conservative and the U, which have distanced themselves from the government coalition, but also deal with the opposition of others such as the Democratic Center and Radical Change, which will have their own legislative projects. with EFE