Lawmakers Abandon Telecoms Reform Bills for a Month

Costa Rica's legislative assembly has decided to drop plenary discussions of modifications to the country's telecoms law during November and will instead focus on the country's 2008 budget, local daily Prensa Libre reported.

The government is under pressure to pass the bills because they are designed to prepare the market for partial sector liberalization, as spelled out in the Central America and Dominican Republic free trade agreement with the US (Cafta-DR), which got the green light from the people of Costa Rica on October 7.

One bill will adjust the legislation for partial liberalization, most notably outlining plans for regulatory entities, and the other contains measures to make the incumbent state-run telco ICE more resilient to competition.

Legislators from the social democratic party PLN and Christian democratic party PUSC have suggested exercising an option for fast-track discussion of the bills, but the libertarian party ML has warned that the norm allowing fast-tracking is not applicable to bills that affect taxation and the two bills in questions do have clauses relating to taxation. This could cause problems with the Cafta roadmap, according to the ML.

Posted to the site on 6th November 2007