MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Feud with Patagonian provinces not settled despite judiciary ruling

“The issue led to a false rift between the national State and the provincial States,” Governor Torres explained

A Federal Judge in Rawson ruled Tuesday that the national government of Argentine President Javier Milei should have not withheld the so-called co-participation funds owed to the province of Chubut. Nevertheless, Buenos Aires will reportedly take the case to the federal Supreme Court. Hence, the matter is far from settled.

The federal administration's decision had prompted a joint reply by the governors of the six Patagonian provinces (Tierra del Fuego, Santa Cruz, Chubut, Río Negro, Neuquén, and La Pampa) who threatened to cut all oil output in retribution. Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres said Tuesday that he welcomed Judge Hugo Sastre's decision in the case filed by his government claiming that “the automatic withholding of co-participation funds” was “a tool of political pressure.”

In the 77-page lawsuit, the government of Chubut requested a measure ordering ”the cessation of the automatic withholding of the amounts to be received by the province of Chubut as reimbursements for loans agreed within the framework of the Trust Fund for Provincial Development (Decree No. 286/95), from the amounts to be received by the province of Chubut as Federal Tax Coparticipation,“ which should last ”for the term of the economic, financial and administrative emergency of the Provincial State provided by Law No. VII No. 94.“ The petition also demanded that the National State be ordered to ”renegotiate the debt under reasonable conditions.“

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After the favorable ruling, the Patagonian governors gave a joint press conference in which they demanded Milei to seek consensus. ”We do not want more sterile fights,“ they stressed. We want ”a Patagonian development agenda to generate more foreign currency,“ they added.

Torres said that ”the issue is settled“ and asked for ”unity“ because there is no time for ”ideological arguments.“

”The issue led to a false rift between the national State and the provincial States. Argentina needs unity and that we agree, we do not have time to give ideological arguments we have to guarantee health, education,“ and other issues, Torres insisted.

”The national government has to accommodate the macroeconomy which is a challenge that we accompany. It was a statement before the justice because we are convinced that it is the right thing to do, it is not a war with the president,“ he further explained. ”This could have been solved with common sense. All the governors are here to dialogue, to generate consensus, to generate foreign currency,“ he added from the federal Senate in Buenos Aires.

”No governor wants the national government to do badly, but we have the right to disagree. We want to live in peace, to be able to govern our provinces without false rifts that harm the citizens. We have to be able to reach a consensus,“ he also pointed out.

Despite his words, Milei's administration announced it would seek a so-called per-saltum measure whereby the federal Supreme Court would claim original jurisdiction in the case to avoid the full chain of appeals. According to Law 26,790, a per-saltum only applies to ”those cases of federal competence in which it is accredited that they involve issues of notorious institutional gravity, whose definitive and expeditious solution is necessary.”

According to Buenos Aires media, the judiciary war between the national government and those of the provinces is bound to escalate.