While he was expected to give a statement last night, at the close of the round of meetings initiated with Congress to overcome the crisis, President Sebastián Piñera finally took advantage of the daily balance sheet of today’s Covid-19 headed by the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, to address the issue.
Not to mention the “agenda of common lows”, as defined by Senate President Yasna Provoste, nor of “universal aid”, which would be the concrete mechanism to be put in place, the Representative measured his words, appealing to assess progress towards a “framework of understanding”, but always emphasizing respect for “institutionality” and separation of powers.
“We all know the importance of caring for and protecting our institutionality, acting with responsibility, respecting the powers of the powers of the state,” he said.
In this line, he noted that “we want to ratify our full willingness to dialogue and reach agreements, so that instead of confronting each other, we will join forces.”
Among the contents addressed at yesterday’s meetings, which also included Chile Vamos and its presidencies, SMEs and the Head of State mentioned at least six: extending the social protection network, increasing the coverage of The Emergency Family Income to 100% of the families of the Social Register of Households, “covering much of our middle class”; extend the benefit of the postnatal; strengthen aid to small and medium-sized enterprises; contribute more resources to the health sector and reduce waiting lists; work on job recovery; and also advance mechanisms to recover pension funds, after withdrawals.
“All of these objectives have been discussed, and they require additional resources. More recourse needs to be raised, through a tax agreement, with an emphasis on reducing exemptions,” he said, confirming the collection mechanism.
“The needs of citizens are non-negotiable”
The open dialogue between the government and Congress has as its protagonist the president of the Senate, Yasna Provoste, whom the Representative did not explicitly appoint in his version today.
This Saturday Provoste again went out to defend the process of rapprochement with the Executive, which will be done through the Political Committee in an exclusively institutional context, i.e. Congress, he said.
In this context, the senator again rejected the nickname “kitchen” they have used to denote the process of understanding that is being established with the Government, as she did yesterday in person and on social media, thus responding to the apprehensions launched by humanist MEP Pamela Jiles. “There is no negotiation here, because the needs of citizens are non-negotiable,” Provoste said in conversation with CHV News.
And the senator also claimed the value of dialogue in a democracy. “I am absolutely contrary to these spaces of negotiation behind closed doors, without the public knowing and therefore also in this responsibility that has touched me to assume we have taken special consideration with a logic in which things are established. No one who appreciates democracy, no one who wants to contribute to the solution of the most urgent problems that citizens have can be subtracted from a process of dialogue, that is not cooking, it is democracy,” he said.
“This is a sober contribution, without this logic of the bombastic national agreements. Here’s an agenda in urgent common lows,” he said.
