Costa Rica Blogs - Newsfeeds

by Rod Hughes

Costa Rica’s future trade partners in the Central American Free Trade Agreement have granted Costa Rica a seven-month extension on the deadline for getting its house in order so the treaty can go into effect here. This country’s lawmakers still have to pass 10 bills designed to bring the country’s law into accord with the pact.

Opponents of the treaty in Congress, chiefly the Citizen Action Party (PAC) delegation of lawmakers, have waged a scorched earth retreat since a nationwide referendum last October approved the treaty. Their tactics were to stay away from the congressional floor every time one of the implementation laws came up for a vote, thus preventing a quorum. Moreover, they assaulted the laws with a blizzard of amendments that had to be discussed and voted on.

All this meant that needed legislation was blocked from consideration while PAC played its little games. But earlier this month, PAC head honcho, former twice-presidential-candidate Ottón Solís, announced that PAC congresspersons would no longer boycott the sessions. He did not mention the amendments, however, leaving observers to wonder if the “will of the majority” means anything to the party. CAFTA was, after all, ratified by a citizen vote, not congress.

Three bills are in their first debate and and seven others have passed this stage and are in their second, final debate. One is referred to the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Still, chief Presidential advisor Rodrigo Arias says that with PAC’s new attitude, he sees no reason why all the bills are not going to become law in the next three months. Arias is well aware that the Administration has the bare 38 votes to pass the bills and that the absence from a simple cold suffered by one of the Pro-CAFTA congresspersons can result in the hasty withdrawal of a bill from vote lest it not pass.

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz says it was not easy to convince the other countries to give Costa Rica the extra time and, indeed, the extension was granted only two days before the February 29 deadline ran out. “Honestly, nobody could understand why the Legislative Assembly took all those months they did.” Some of the countries in CAFTA actually ratified the treaty in one or two days after they were introduced into their congresses–from the Costa Rican point of view, almost before the ink was dry on the treaty. But, then, Ticos are famous throughout Latin America for always being late.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Business and Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.