Last December, I called on the Government to take urgent action to stop the indirect route whereby British taxpayers’ hard earned money was being used to support Argentina and to join tough global action against that country at a time when it has defaulted on over $100 billion worth in bonds – the largest failure to repay sovereign debt in global history.
After a long running campaign that I led in Parliament, earlier this year the British Government changed its policy to stop supporting World Bank and Inter-American Bank loans to Argentina. UK taxpayer money will, therefore, no longer be used to underwrite the loans which Buenos Aires consistently reneged on re-paying. In addition, the Obama Administration has now also voted against new US loans.
I believe that further measures against Argentina are required, however, as so recently I led a debate in the House of Commons challenging their membership of the prestigious G20 international forum on the basis that it has failed on all three of the organisation’s primary objectives; namely:
Restoring global growth;
Strengthening the international financial system; and
Reforming international financial institutions.
With non-members, including countries like Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland contributing far more to our global economic wellbeing, one has to question the benefit of Argentina’s presence in the G20.
The country has been named and shamed by Transparency International as one of the worst in Latin America for corruption, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has starkly stated that Argentina’s Government is lying about its economy and cannot be trusted. In her own country, President Kirchner has been rocked by a series of corruption allegations made by one of the country’s most famous investigative journalists. We cannot, and should not, allow Cristina Kirchner to be rewarded with a welcome to the world’s top table.
Argentina is an international outlier. No other country – including in Europe – is behaving so irresponsibly in relation to its debt. No other country is in receipt of an IMF censure for falsifying inflation figures. The world should stand up for the rule of law, sanctity of contract, and respect for international legal and financial obligations. We should not stand with those who refuse to abide by court judgements or who steal private property. We certainly should not stand with those who ally themselves with drug traffickers and Iranian extremist groups as Kirchner’s regime does. We stood stand firm on protecting the rights and security of Falkland Islanders, and we now have a strong stance on international loans. It is time, too, to take a tough position on Argentina’s membership of the G-20.
Henry Smith MP