On the Day of Affirmation of Argentina's Rights over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces, President Alberto Fernández announced the sending to Congress of three bills with the purpose of reaffirming and giving State policy status to the Argentine claim of sovereignty over the Islands, in addition to protecting national natural resources. These parliamentary initiatives seek to create a National Advisory Council on Policies Referred to Malvinas, demarcate the outer limit of the Argentine Continental Shelf beyond 200 miles, and increase sanctions for those who practice illegal fishing in Argentine waters.
The presentation of the bills is part of the policies outlined by the President during his inauguration speech, last December 10, and before the Legislative Assembly, last March 1 at the opening of sessions.
“We will work tirelessly to intensify the legitimate and imprescriptible claim for sovereignty”, the President had stated on that occasion, when he pointed out that “for this task the mandate of a President, or of a Government is not enough: it requires a State policy, of medium and long term”.
Foreign Minister Felipe Solá, who presented the bills at the Olivos residence together with the Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and the South Atlantic of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Daniel Filmus, stated that the initiatives “aim to strengthen our sovereign presence, our economic activity and promote memory with concrete facts, for the heroes of the Malvinas and for others that lost their lives in Antarctica”.
Filmus considered that “it is necessary to find new ways that allow us to create the conditions to resume the essential dialogue to recover full exercise of our sovereignty”.
The first bill promotes the creation of a National Advisory Council on Policies Referred to Malvinas, which will be located within the presidential orbit and will have a plural composition. Its objective will be to design and sustain medium and long term State policies, it will also include members of the different parliamentary blocks, judiciary, academia, and representatives of the province of Tierra del Fuego and Malvinas Veterans.
The second of the initiatives will contribute to protecting sovereign rights over the resources of the seabed and subsoil of the Argentine sea, and proposes to demarcate the outer limit of the Argentine Continental Shelf beyond 200 miles.
This proposal is the result of the work carried out during various governments by the National Commission on the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf (COPLA in the Spanish acronym), which allowed Argentina to make a complete presentation to the UN Secretary-General of the outer limit of its continental shelf.
On March 2016 and March 2017, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLPC in the Spanish acronym) at the United Nations adopted by consensus the Recommendations on the Argentine presentation made in April 21, 2009.
Solá affirmed that “establishing by law the publication of the coordinates of the Argentine continental shelf will increase legal certainty for the granting of concessions for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons, minerals and sedentary species for all the Argentine people and future generations”.
The third bill, prepared jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Secretariat of Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture, increases the sanctions and fines for those who practice illegal fishing in Argentine waters, including those that surround the Malvinas Islands.
The rule seeks to avoid looting by fishing vessels that enter Argentine maritime spaces without permission and will strengthen the work of the round table that has been set up with the Ministries of Defense, Security, Agriculture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and which has as an objective the defense of national natural resources in the South Atlantic.
