President Alberto Fernández highlighted the multidisciplinary work of the government areas involved in the drafting of the bills for the creation of the National Council of Affairs relative to the Malvinas, for the demarcation of the outer limit of the Argentine Continental Shelf beyond 200 miles and the updating of sanctions on illegal fishing.
“They have done an extraordinary job for the country”, said the Head of State when he received Foreign Minister Felipe Solá at the Olivos Residence on August 25, accompanied by the Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic, Daniel Filmus, and the general coordinator of the National Commission on the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf (COPLA in the Spanish acronym), Frida Armas Pfirter.
“These laws strengthen our sovereign presence and promote memory”, said Solá, who also stressed the “enormous importance” of the President's decision, “since they serve to turn the Malvinas Question into a true State policy, regardless of the government in office, and to protect our sovereign rights over the continental shelf and its resources, which belong to all Argentines”.
Meanwhile, Filmus reported that in his area they are already working, together with the Ministry of Education, in the production of “thousands of maps with the new demarcation of boundaries of Argentina so that they reach all the schools in the country and the boys and girls can also take ownership of this outlook”, once normal school activity is resumed.
Law 27,757 on Maritime Spaces, approved on August 4 and promulgated by the Executive Power through Decree 693/2020, will help protect sovereign rights over the resources of the bed and subsoil of the Argentine Sea, and proposes to demarcate the outer limit of the continental shelf beyond 200 miles.
This regulation is the result of the work carried out during various governments by COPLA, which allowed Argentina to make to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) based in the United Nations Organization the complete presentation of the outer limit of its continental shelf.
In this context, in March 2016 and March 2017, the CLCS in United Nations adopted by consensus the recommendations on the Argentine submission made on April 21, 2009.
Regarding Law 27,558, also approved on August 4 and promulgated by Decree 694/220, it promotes the creation of the National Council of Affairs relative to the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands and the Corresponding Maritime and Insular Spaces, which will function within the scope of the Presidency and will have a plural composition.
Its objective will be to draw up and sustain state policies in the medium and long term, at the same time that it will have members of the different parliamentary blocs, jurists, academics and representatives of the province of Tierra del Fuego and of the ex-combatants.
It will also have the purpose of contributing in the elaboration of the foundation of the Argentine position in the sovereignty dispute in its geographical, historical, legal and political aspects.
In addition, it will propose and carry out teaching and research activities that provide citizens with knowledge about the legitimacy of the claim of the full exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands and the corresponding maritime and insular spaces.
