Mexico: Deputies approve the energy reform

With the vote of Morena and its allies, the Chamber of Deputies last night generally approved the constitutional reform to recover the role of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) as public companies of the State and establish the preponderant character of the electric company with respect to the private ones in the national market.

When explaining the effect of the changes, the majority bench explained that it is a key reform which reverses that of December 2013, in the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, and specified that, in a next package of legal changes, private investment in the electricity sector will be regulated and guaranteed, where its participation will be limited to 46 percent, and the remaining 54 will be reserved exclusively for CFE.

The opinion was approved with 353 votes in favor and 122 against, at the close of this edition the plenary session began to review 260 reservations, of which only one was accepted, to suppress the exclusivity of the State in the energy transition and allow private participation , as well as defining that communication via freight and passenger railways is a priority.

Given the insistence of the PAN and the businessmen who converge in MC, regarding the fact that acquired rights are affected in private investments protected by current laws, representative Gricelda Valencia de la Mora, responded:

It is not an attack on private capital, it is an opportunity to balance the market and for public companies to compete on equal terms. We cannot allow private interests to dominate strategic sectors.

Throughout the discussion, PAN and PRI warned that changing the role of productive company from the State to public company to Pemex and CFE will imply a fiscal cost for assuming the debt of both companies. Pemex alone, they indicated, amounts to 101 billion dollars.

The coordinator of the PT, Reginaldo Sandoval, explained to them that the oil company’s debt decreased compared to the amount of 131 billion dollars in 2018 and maintained that the 2013 reform was intended that private foreigners would take the company’s assets, which are worth 21 billion pesos. Just look at the robbery!

The debate was not without its harsh moments. The president of the Energy Commission, Rocío Abreu, came out in defense of the reform and called it ignorant to the opposition. Josefina Gamboa (PAN) reminded Abreu that, as a PRI member, on December 12, 2013, she voted in favor of Peña Nieto’s reform. The aforementioned deputy did not respond.