In a historic session, the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation unanimously approved the law creating the National Council of Affairs relative to the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces, an initiative that had also been voted by all the parliamentary blocs in the Senate.
The Council will have a plural composition and its objective will be to design and sustain State policies. It will be headed by the President of the Nation and will be made up of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, the Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic, political forces with parliamentary representation, notable academics and jurists, the province of Tierra del Fuego and the ex-combatants.
When the passing was made known, the Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and the South Atlantic of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Daniel Filmus, highlighted “the consensus reached by all parliamentary blocs, both in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies, about the importance of designing strategies on the Malvinas Question in the medium and long term, which transcend the electoral calendars”.
The members of the Council or their delegates shall exercise their functions on an ad honorem basis and shall arrive at a consensus over non-binding recommendations.
The body will also have the functions of contributing in the elaboration of the support of the Argentine position in the sovereignty dispute in its geographical, environmental, historical, legal and political aspects; and proposing and carrying out teaching and research activities that provide knowledge to the Argentine people about the legitimacy of the claim of the full exercise of sovereignty over the islands and the corresponding maritime spaces.
In addition to carrying out actions aimed at collaborating in the dissemination and promotion of Argentine rights over this area at the regional and global level, it may propose strategies that contribute to the permanent recognition of former Malvinas combatants, fallen in combat, and their families.
In the session of the Chamber of Deputies held on August 4 and with the same consensus of all the political forces, the Congress also passed the law that establishes the outer limit of the Argentine Continental Shelf. The new regulation is of enormous importance from the point of view of sovereignty and is the result of a State policy carried out for more than twenty years by the National Commission on the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf (COPLA in the Spanish acronym).
