New withdrawal of 10% goes ahead: Chamber dispatches the bill and Senate Commission begins to see it this Friday

The project that seeks that people can withdraw another 10% of the AFPs continues to advance. The chamber of the Chamber of Deputies this Tuesday dispatched the bill to the Senate after approving the initiative in general and in particular, so the president of the Senate Constitution Committee, Alfonso de Urresti (PS), said that this Friday they will begin to see the initiative in the instance.

Although this Tuesday the bill needed a quorum of three-fifths of the parliamentarians in office to be approved, it finally even exceeded two-thirds, since it got 130 votes in favor, 18 against and two abstentions. It should be remembered that the first withdrawal of 10% was approved in general with 95 votes in favor on July 8, when it was in its first constitutional process; later it was approved by 116 favorable votes on July 23, in its third process. Thus, yesterday’s votes in favor exceeded the previous two.

This is because the votes of Chile Vamos were added. When the first constitutional process was voted, the first withdrawal of 10%, there were 13 pro-government parliamentarians who approved the initiative. In the third constitutional process of the first withdrawal, Chile Vamos delivered 35 favorable votes. But yesterday there were 44 votes that the UDI (16) and RN (28) gave.

The day, which began this Tuesday at 10:00 am and ended around 6:00 pm, left La Moneda with new flanks open. In her speech during the debate on the project, the head of the UDI bench, María José Hoffmann, warned the Executive that now the relationship they have will change: “I want to announce that as of today the relationship of this bench that I preside over will change with the government. We are not willing to continue to bear the costs due to the lack of a clear line. If they really want an efficient solution with social sensitivity, the government must invite an agreement, “he said.

From Evópoli, in private, they point to the same thing, and transmit that the government has been told repeatedly that the parliamentarians do not want to continue paying the costs alone of measures that are unpopular. They say that they are the ones who are putting their faces assuming the majority rejection of the people. This is why, they acknowledge, that the strategy of some parliamentarians from Chile Vamos – in coordination with the government – who entered indications, is not well regarded at all, because in some way it would be to become part of a project that they have recognized is bad. In any case, yesterday all the additional indications that were entered into the room by the ruling parliamentarians were rejected.

In Evópoli, they also transmit that the Minister of Finance, Ignacio Briones, did his part and kept the votes of his party aligned, unlike his cabinet peers with their respective parties.

The president of that party, Andrés Molina, who maintains frozen relations with the government pending a plan for La Araucanía, stated: “Here there is a responsibility of the political ministers, of the political committee that were not supported by their respective parties. politicians “, adding that” everyone has to do their job and indeed Minister Monckeberg’s job has to do with that, with being clear about the results and anticipating “.

Regarding the strategy of presenting indications, he added that “it is an excuse that some in general had to vote in favor.” And regarding a ministerial adjustment in the political committee, he limited himself to saying that this “corresponds to the President.”

For his part, the head of the RN bench, Sebastián Torrealba, pointed out that “you don’t have to look to the side, you don’t have to blame anyone. Those who blame others are because they have a deficit in their work. Here a project has been approved, and the political committee is working well, and now comes the importance of the procedure in the Senate ”.

During Tuesday’s vote, neither the Minister of Finance nor the Minister of Labor, María José Zaldívar, was present. Both attended only for a few moments during the project discussion in the morning. Nor did they make any interventions. It was the Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, Cristián Monckeberg, who did attend and intervened during the debate, unlike what happened in the first retreat, where the Ministers of Labor and Finance did ask for the floor. The latter was even present during the July vote.

However, several of the parliamentarians who voted against hope that the government will go to the Constitutional Court (TC), however, the Executive has not yet defined it, and the idea weakened after the project was approved by more than two thirds of the deputies, subject for which this option was also discarded in the first withdrawal of 10%.

Government sources point out that the dilemma is the following: on the one hand, not going to the TC will open a flank with the toughest sectors of the right that voted against and that say that the government is committed. But on the other hand, if they do, they will have to take care of all the public discontent and the criticism of those who approved it.

Meanwhile, there is some fear in sectors of the government that this will end in a new ministerial adjustment, as happened with the first withdrawal, although they see it less likely. Some in the Executive believe that a possible adjustment could be linked to the change that has to be made when authorities resign to compete for parliamentarians.

Jorge Alessandri, one of the UDIs who voted against, pointed out that “the constitutionality reservation is not only due to the quorum, but also because the project was an exclusive presidential initiative. The government has to go to the TC ”.

Meanwhile, Minister Monckeberg said that “we made the constitutional reservations because we have some doubts regarding the project as it was proposed. This is a situation that is being evaluated, we cannot give up any alternative ”.

The deputies approved the withdrawal of 10% as it came out of the Constitution Commission, with one exception: they rejected the taxation of withdrawals made by people with incomes greater than $ 2.5 million. This means that it was approved that people can reintegrate funds quoting 5% voluntarily, and also that the authorities must add eventual withdrawals in their declaration of assets and interests.

In the Senate, Chile Vamos will seek to replace issues that were rejected, such as targeting. Senator Rodrigo Galilea (RN), a member of the Constitutional Commission, affirms that “these withdrawals of funds affect in a very relevant way the real possibility that a reform to the pension system will have a substantive impact on the pensions of Chileans. For this reason, a measure like that must be completely exceptional and limited to people who are in dire need. For the same reason, I will make indications in that regard ”. He also warns that “I would set various limits. For example: whoever has APV cannot withdraw, the corresponding taxes must be paid for withdrawal and a percentage of income reduction must be credited ”.

Despite the fact that the government entered into Congress a project so that terminally ill patients have a different pension calculation, in any case this Tuesday the Chamber of Deputies approved in general a parliamentary motion so that people who are in this condition can withdraw all of pension funds.

This constitutional reform was approved with 150 votes in favor. Of course, the initiative had to return to the House Constitution Commission, since new indications were entered in the room.

The government has said that it agrees that terminally ill patients should have special treatment when calculating the pension, but has said that this motion is not recommended, since it does not consider issues such as leaving a survivor’s pension.