On his trip to Colombia to witness the appointment of Gustavo Petro as the new head of state, President Gabriel Boric was asked if he had held a dialogue with the newly assumed president on the idea of installing a single currency for Latin America and what he believed were the benefits of this monetary policy. Boric was in favor of any regional integration initiative or instance that strengthens cooperation among countries, but stressed that there were many issues to evaluate before that.
President Gabriel Boric’s statements were criticized by right-wing parliamentarians. And not only that. A special session of the Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies requested parliamentarians of National Renewal (RN), with the aim that Minister Mario Marcel explain the effects and scope of the creation of a single currency for the region. The request is promoted by the deputies Frank Sauerbaum and Miguel Mellado, members of that commission.
The RN legislators ask the president of the commission, Deputy Jaime Naranjo (PS), to specify the special session they are asking for, since “it is essential that the Minister of Finance give some degree of certainty regarding the statements of the President of the Republic, who, indifferent to the fragility of the markets, decided to open himself to a possibility that only aggravates the uncertainty that has characterized our economy in recent months.”
Deputy Mellado said that Gabriel Boric is “president of all Chileans and that what he speaks or says, commits the State of Chile. That is very dangerous, especially on the issue of currency unification, which took Europe years and that they have many years more unity than we do, with the issue of exchange and also with the issue of a strong and fruitful European Union. Compare ourselves with them… we are still light years away. We want the Finance Minister to come and explain to us the depth and scope of that word.”
Sauerbaum, for his part, criticized “the ideological fanaticism that Boric has and wants to resemble Latin American countries leveling down. It is a tremendous mistake if you want to insinuate that Chile can join them in a single currency. It is the Single Latin American Currency, MULA, as we have called it.”
It is worth mentioning that President Gabriel Boric said that the single currency is part of “long-term processes” and that “we have a lot to advance before”, adding that in the conversation with his counterpart Gustavo Petro they mentioned precisely that their objectives are “that the alliances are not only for the ideological affinities of the day but in function of the cooperation between our peoples”.
For Deputy Sauerbaum, the words of President Boric “ignore the effort that previous generations have made for the country in the last 40 years” and affirmed that “Chile is the most open country in the world in economic matters, with a fiscal rule that other Latin American countries do not have, of 1% of the fiscal deficit; we have an autonomous Central Bank, which does not receive orders from the political power and that has made us have low inflation levels, and low interest rates to tend to investment and growth and thus reduce poverty.”
“We regret that it is even insinuated that Chile can enter a Latin American market that no matter how neighbors and fraternities we are with them, have no relationship with the economic situation of our country, with respect to theirs,” said the RN militant.
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