• PROPOSAL: Mexico’s governing party (MORENA) unveiled a bill to replace three of Mexico’s economic regulatory agencies -antitrust agency COFECE, telecom regulator IFT and energy commission CRE- which critics believe intends to strip them of their independent nature.
• AUSTERITY: In the name of austerity, the MORENA group in the Mexican Senate proposed to fold the three agencies into a single body and to remove their current commissioners. The bill would allow the executive branch to have the final say on commissioners for the new body.
• COUNTER: “It’s not justified. Austerity is simply a pretext to promote a counterreform and achieve having an institution subordinated and politically controlled by the current government”, said Mony de Swaan, the former president of the predecessor to the IFT.
• GREEN LIGHT: On Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he welcomes any bill seeking to achieve savings. Essential parts of Mexican economy’s opening during the past two decades, López Obrador said that many of these agencies were unnecessary.
