MEXICO-LEGISLATION/ – REUTERS Agency
MEXICO CITY, April 29 (Reuters) – The Mexican Senate approved on Saturday, in an accelerated manner and without the presence of the opposition, some twenty important legislative initiatives, including two constitutional reforms and a new mining law that has awakened the rejection of a business chamber and the government of Canada.
The package of legal changes was endorsed -in many cases unanimously and with hardly any debate- by representatives of the government Morena party and its allies at an alternate venue, after the opposition tried to avoid the session by occupying the chamber’s usual voting precinct. high.
The two constitutional reforms approved by the Senate, which finished voting at dawn after beginning deliberations on Friday night, involve lowering the age to be a deputy and secretary of state to 18 years from 21, and prohibiting aggressors of women from participating in elections.
Hours before the session, senators from Morena went to the presidential headquarters, the National Palace, to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in a gesture of unity from the ruling party criticized by the opposition as a sign of the lack of independence of the state powers.
One of the laws approved in extremis -because the ordinary session ends this month- shortens concessions in the mining sector to 30 years from 50 and toughens water extraction permits, among other modifications to the previous norm. The initiative arose at the proposal of López Obrador.
The Canadian Ministry of Commerce expressed its concern to Mexico this week about the impact that the new mining legislation, previously approved by the Chamber of Deputies, may have for the local industry, in which various companies from that country participate.
Before being approved, when only the original plan was known, which reduced the concession period to just 15 years, the national mining chamber, Camimex, warned that the project could cost the country some 9,000 million dollars in investments and up to 420,000 jobs. direct.
The mining giant Grupo México ruled out on Thursday that the reforms to the sector will affect its project portfolio. (Reporting by Raúl Cortés Fernández)
Source: Ambito
