Attached documents
- Pacto de Julio.pdf105 KB
On Saturday morning, in a ceremony held at the Concordia Convention Center, Mayor Francisco Azcué led the signing of the July Pact, to which a hundred city institutions subscribed, with whom work was carried out in different meetings on the points of the agreement, promoting citizen participation, receiving contributions that on this August 17 were embodied in the final document.
Entities from the productive, sports, educational, trade union and labor, and social sectors, representatives of the different religious entities, NGOs, neighborhood commissions, civil and non-governmental associations, Universities, Volunteer Firefighters, Police of Entre Ríos, among others, were present.
In his speech, the Mayor, drawing a parallel with this new anniversary of the passing into immortality of General Don José de San Martín, stated that “to improve and for our city to develop and grow, we need to appeal to that patriotic conduct, to the vocation of service and to a citizen commitment. That is the concept that we stimulate from our administration and it is what we found on this path with the proposal to sign an agreement with the intermediate institutions of Concordia”.
After highlighting that the intention is to foster citizen participation, Azcué stressed that “the July Pact document is made up of a series of principles and commitments that we are assuming; it is a basis for what we are going to do”.
DIALOGUE AND CONSENSUS
In that sense, the Mayor highlighted that to achieve the objectives “spaces for dialogue and the search for consensus are necessary. We have to do it for our city, for ourselves, but above all, thinking about those who are coming and what we can leave to our children and grandchildren”.
Without failing to acknowledge that this “will demand an enormous effort”, Azcué stated that it is necessary “to give ourselves time, to listen to each other and to work by debating ideas in a framework of respect, even with those with whom we do not agree on everything”, making it clear that “we are not looking for political alliances, nor a front, nor a co-government”.
“I thank those who have subscribed to the July Pact for their commitment to work in an articulated manner, strengthening the networks of institutions in our city. I know that what is coming is difficult, but the challenge is to transform Concordia, resolving structural issues that have been hitting us for many years. We have self-respect and we are convinced that we can do it,” Azcué pointed out.
WORKING GROUPS
Regarding the continuity of the July Pact, the Mayor indicated that as of today, spaces or working groups will be established with the different sectors that signed the document, without closing the possibility for other actors to join. They will begin to meet in mid-September.
“We have organized a schedule of meetings that will be formed by the intermediate institutions that subscribed, and we have already begun to work with some of them, according to the subject matter of each point. This day signifies a starting point for joint work among all the actors in the community because the commitment is to our citizenry, transforming the present and laying the foundations for the future of Concordia. I trust that we will achieve very good things, which is why I ask that we continue together, for our city”.
JULY PACT: TEN OBJECTIVES
For this reason, 10 objectives have been selected that promote collaboration and work, “a productive public conversation and to put an end to a long era of conflict and also of impotence,” stated the mayor of Concordia.
Recover security. Provide tools and support to all those involved in generating better conditions and guarantees for citizens. The local government and social institutions support police officers, prosecutors, and judges. We will promote through our representatives the regulatory changes that are considered necessary and useful; we will be fully attentive to social demands, but the city will be unyielding with the goal of peaceful coexistence. Security is non-negotiable. We will open a space for dialogue with the provincial government to collaborate in the search for the best tools and we will summon members of the other branches of government to that dialogue. There is no space for those who want to alter the daily life of our citizens.
Commitment to education. Beyond all the current difficulties, we will promote mobilizing the social collective, the public system, private actors, NGOs, unions, companies, and families into a “great alliance” to recover the place of prestige and recognition that education deserves. The work of educating builds bonds, generates esteem, and promotes development. Aware of the enormous difficulties in which this task is carried out, we are going to promote a local support table to multiply our commitment: not to lose school days, to sustain school infrastructure, to improve educational trajectories, to strengthen the teaching role, to increase the offer of higher education, to multiply professional training, to adjust contents to our current needs, to evaluate intervention processes, and to guarantee access and sustainability conditions, especially for the most vulnerable.
Organize the state and guarantee budgetary balance. Our local government (like others in Argentina) has been expanding its competencies and increasing its budget to address these new roles. Many times that expansion has been anarchic. There are overlapping public services, poorly assumed roles, unnecessary benefits, etc. All this, in the face of a society besieged by the tax burden directly or indirectly through the inflationary tax. The expansion of public activity has been done to the detriment of its quality and the abandonment of essential roles of a proximity government. We are going to promote, starting from the 2025 budget, a process of budgetary balance that is sustainable and guaranteed over time, in order to be able to adequately finance public services, the necessary expansion of infrastructure for development, to promote conditions for better economic performance, and to avoid the marked cycles of expansion/adjustment.
Have a medium-term infrastructure plan. The city has marked deficits that prevent the attraction of private investment, hinder existing activities, and complicate habitat conditions. Although it is materially impossible in current budgetary conditions to promote a shock of infrastructural investment, it is perfectly possible to agree on an increase in such investment with a medium-term scenario (10 years) and a program of priority works supported by all social actors. A credible and qualified horizon will allow us to work better on a day-to-day basis and, above all, avoid the diversion toward current spending of resources that must leverage our future development.
Build a local development plan. Select a set of priority value chains that, due to their potential, tradition, and/or impact, justify a regulatory or budgetary effort by the local government, in order to facilitate private investment, increase job creation, and favor an environment of collaboration/innovation within them. The government does not have the economic or technical resources to promote an excessively ambitious initiative. However, the city's long productive tradition justifies validating spaces for public-private articulation to boost the entrepreneurial spirit and give a clear signal in favor of economic activity. Concordia can express a greatness hidden in its pioneering and thriving DNA. A new sustainable, innovative, and diversified economic matrix is built from a clear institutional framework, with reasonable municipal tax, with investment planning, and with a clear facilitating role by the local state.
A common plan for social cohesion. Concordia exhibits its long decay in its enormous and undeniable impoverished settlements. Aware that the results of a deep economic transformation require time, it is essential to agree on a common plan that selects the best practices of public intervention at the service of social cohesion. We need a responsible, professional, and articulated model for the promotion of the people most affected by the crisis, distancing ourselves from any sign of political manipulation. In order to take on this task of the highest ethical order, we will summon social actors so that poverty is never again a means of manipulation and control.
Build a culture of inclusion. In recent years, due to the impulse of specific organizations, visibility and sensitivity have increased, and it has become evident how we naturalize a set of conditions that make it impossible or difficult for many people to exercise their rights and function in different planes of social life. Inclusion and the full valuation of difference must be a guiding principle of all local policies.
Consolidate an environmental agenda. Caring for the environment is not a limit to development, but the condition for its long-term possibility. We must overcome the exclusionary debate and organize our actions toward the formation of habits, regulations, and criteria that enable economic activity and habitat within a framework of essential care in the face of the environmental stress that the planet is suffering. It is not about canceling economic activities, nor about allowing predatory management of natural resources. It is about guaranteeing logical processes and controls aligned with the needs of today's world.
Energy Sustainable City: it is considered urgent and important to work as soon as possible in this regard. In the current socio-economic context, it is essential to address the situation immediately, but there is also no time to lose in adapting to the new energy paradigms that are already in force in the world; defining as priorities:
On one hand, the situation requires the application of public policies that allow us to obtain a fair and reasonable rate for the entire community, using the means actually available (Surpluses-Royalties-Purchase Modality, etc.) and that are contemplated within both national and provincial regulations. When we say Fair and Reasonable, we refer to a rate that covers “the efficient costs of the chain” (Generation - Transmission - Distribution) but also contemplates the payment availability of each of the users, taking into account an efficient use of energy. That same source of resources should also be used to build network extensions that guarantee at least an essential supply in safe conditions to the vulnerable sectors of the community.
Secondly, it is necessary to plan as soon as possible an intelligent “Services Network” where supply and demand interact efficiently, taking into account new technologies, both in the field of communications (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, etc.) as well as innovations in the field of renewable energies (distributed energy resources). Although it is true that these interactions must be regulated by the specific entities of each sector, the role of the Municipality is not minor, considering its police power over public space, whether terrestrial or aerial, and its participation is necessary as was done by the communities that advanced with smart cities and networks (SMART City and SMART Grid).
Health as a fundamental human right, which is why it has recognition and protection in community and international instruments, enjoying constitutional status. As a municipality, we are prepared to work in the Health area to move from a low-complexity care system to one centered on Primary Health Care based on prevention, promotion, and protection, having all the CAPS as bases for the actions to be developed in field operations. To move from a low-quality system to one of quality and continuous improvement.
ENTITIES THAT SUBSCRIBED
Among the intermediate institutions that signed the July Pact were the Faculty of Food Sciences and the Faculty of Administration Sciences of the National University of Entre Ríos; Commerce, Industry and Services Center of Concordia; various unions and labor guilds; religious entities of the evangelical, Catholic, and Jewish communities; the National Technological University; Citrus Exporters Chamber; sports institutions; Cáritas Concordia; Argentine Red Cross Concordia branch; Electric Cooperative and other Services of Concordia; Food Bank; Concordia Departmental Headquarters of the Police of Entre Ríos; Association and Active Corps of Volunteer Firefighters; Palliative Care Concordia; Fishing Guides Association; neighborhood commissions; NGOs, Departmental School Directorate, among others.
Present, in addition to those who subscribed, were members of the Municipal Cabinet; provincial legislators and councilors.
Entities from the productive, sports, educational, trade union and labor, and social sectors, representatives of the different religious entities, NGOs, neighborhood commissions, civil and non-governmental associations, Universities, Volunteer Firefighters, Police of Entre Ríos, among others, were present.
In his speech, the Mayor, drawing a parallel with this new anniversary of the passing into immortality of General Don José de San Martín, stated that “to improve and for our city to develop and grow, we need to appeal to that patriotic conduct, to the vocation of service and to a citizen commitment. That is the concept that we stimulate from our administration and it is what we found on this path with the proposal to sign an agreement with the intermediate institutions of Concordia”.
After highlighting that the intention is to foster citizen participation, Azcué stressed that “the July Pact document is made up of a series of principles and commitments that we are assuming; it is a basis for what we are going to do”.
DIALOGUE AND CONSENSUS
In that sense, the Mayor highlighted that to achieve the objectives “spaces for dialogue and the search for consensus are necessary. We have to do it for our city, for ourselves, but above all, thinking about those who are coming and what we can leave to our children and grandchildren”.
Without failing to acknowledge that this “will demand an enormous effort”, Azcué stated that it is necessary “to give ourselves time, to listen to each other and to work by debating ideas in a framework of respect, even with those with whom we do not agree on everything”, making it clear that “we are not looking for political alliances, nor a front, nor a co-government”.
“I thank those who have subscribed to the July Pact for their commitment to work in an articulated manner, strengthening the networks of institutions in our city. I know that what is coming is difficult, but the challenge is to transform Concordia, resolving structural issues that have been hitting us for many years. We have self-respect and we are convinced that we can do it,” Azcué pointed out.
WORKING GROUPS
Regarding the continuity of the July Pact, the Mayor indicated that as of today, spaces or working groups will be established with the different sectors that signed the document, without closing the possibility for other actors to join. They will begin to meet in mid-September.
“We have organized a schedule of meetings that will be formed by the intermediate institutions that subscribed, and we have already begun to work with some of them, according to the subject matter of each point. This day signifies a starting point for joint work among all the actors in the community because the commitment is to our citizenry, transforming the present and laying the foundations for the future of Concordia. I trust that we will achieve very good things, which is why I ask that we continue together, for our city”.
JULY PACT: TEN OBJECTIVES
For this reason, 10 objectives have been selected that promote collaboration and work, “a productive public conversation and to put an end to a long era of conflict and also of impotence,” stated the mayor of Concordia.
Recover security. Provide tools and support to all those involved in generating better conditions and guarantees for citizens. The local government and social institutions support police officers, prosecutors, and judges. We will promote through our representatives the regulatory changes that are considered necessary and useful; we will be fully attentive to social demands, but the city will be unyielding with the goal of peaceful coexistence. Security is non-negotiable. We will open a space for dialogue with the provincial government to collaborate in the search for the best tools and we will summon members of the other branches of government to that dialogue. There is no space for those who want to alter the daily life of our citizens.
Commitment to education. Beyond all the current difficulties, we will promote mobilizing the social collective, the public system, private actors, NGOs, unions, companies, and families into a “great alliance” to recover the place of prestige and recognition that education deserves. The work of educating builds bonds, generates esteem, and promotes development. Aware of the enormous difficulties in which this task is carried out, we are going to promote a local support table to multiply our commitment: not to lose school days, to sustain school infrastructure, to improve educational trajectories, to strengthen the teaching role, to increase the offer of higher education, to multiply professional training, to adjust contents to our current needs, to evaluate intervention processes, and to guarantee access and sustainability conditions, especially for the most vulnerable.
Organize the state and guarantee budgetary balance. Our local government (like others in Argentina) has been expanding its competencies and increasing its budget to address these new roles. Many times that expansion has been anarchic. There are overlapping public services, poorly assumed roles, unnecessary benefits, etc. All this, in the face of a society besieged by the tax burden directly or indirectly through the inflationary tax. The expansion of public activity has been done to the detriment of its quality and the abandonment of essential roles of a proximity government. We are going to promote, starting from the 2025 budget, a process of budgetary balance that is sustainable and guaranteed over time, in order to be able to adequately finance public services, the necessary expansion of infrastructure for development, to promote conditions for better economic performance, and to avoid the marked cycles of expansion/adjustment.
Have a medium-term infrastructure plan. The city has marked deficits that prevent the attraction of private investment, hinder existing activities, and complicate habitat conditions. Although it is materially impossible in current budgetary conditions to promote a shock of infrastructural investment, it is perfectly possible to agree on an increase in such investment with a medium-term scenario (10 years) and a program of priority works supported by all social actors. A credible and qualified horizon will allow us to work better on a day-to-day basis and, above all, avoid the diversion toward current spending of resources that must leverage our future development.
Build a local development plan. Select a set of priority value chains that, due to their potential, tradition, and/or impact, justify a regulatory or budgetary effort by the local government, in order to facilitate private investment, increase job creation, and favor an environment of collaboration/innovation within them. The government does not have the economic or technical resources to promote an excessively ambitious initiative. However, the city's long productive tradition justifies validating spaces for public-private articulation to boost the entrepreneurial spirit and give a clear signal in favor of economic activity. Concordia can express a greatness hidden in its pioneering and thriving DNA. A new sustainable, innovative, and diversified economic matrix is built from a clear institutional framework, with reasonable municipal tax, with investment planning, and with a clear facilitating role by the local state.
A common plan for social cohesion. Concordia exhibits its long decay in its enormous and undeniable impoverished settlements. Aware that the results of a deep economic transformation require time, it is essential to agree on a common plan that selects the best practices of public intervention at the service of social cohesion. We need a responsible, professional, and articulated model for the promotion of the people most affected by the crisis, distancing ourselves from any sign of political manipulation. In order to take on this task of the highest ethical order, we will summon social actors so that poverty is never again a means of manipulation and control.
Build a culture of inclusion. In recent years, due to the impulse of specific organizations, visibility and sensitivity have increased, and it has become evident how we naturalize a set of conditions that make it impossible or difficult for many people to exercise their rights and function in different planes of social life. Inclusion and the full valuation of difference must be a guiding principle of all local policies.
Consolidate an environmental agenda. Caring for the environment is not a limit to development, but the condition for its long-term possibility. We must overcome the exclusionary debate and organize our actions toward the formation of habits, regulations, and criteria that enable economic activity and habitat within a framework of essential care in the face of the environmental stress that the planet is suffering. It is not about canceling economic activities, nor about allowing predatory management of natural resources. It is about guaranteeing logical processes and controls aligned with the needs of today's world.
Energy Sustainable City: it is considered urgent and important to work as soon as possible in this regard. In the current socio-economic context, it is essential to address the situation immediately, but there is also no time to lose in adapting to the new energy paradigms that are already in force in the world; defining as priorities:
On one hand, the situation requires the application of public policies that allow us to obtain a fair and reasonable rate for the entire community, using the means actually available (Surpluses-Royalties-Purchase Modality, etc.) and that are contemplated within both national and provincial regulations. When we say Fair and Reasonable, we refer to a rate that covers “the efficient costs of the chain” (Generation - Transmission - Distribution) but also contemplates the payment availability of each of the users, taking into account an efficient use of energy. That same source of resources should also be used to build network extensions that guarantee at least an essential supply in safe conditions to the vulnerable sectors of the community.
Secondly, it is necessary to plan as soon as possible an intelligent “Services Network” where supply and demand interact efficiently, taking into account new technologies, both in the field of communications (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, etc.) as well as innovations in the field of renewable energies (distributed energy resources). Although it is true that these interactions must be regulated by the specific entities of each sector, the role of the Municipality is not minor, considering its police power over public space, whether terrestrial or aerial, and its participation is necessary as was done by the communities that advanced with smart cities and networks (SMART City and SMART Grid).
Health as a fundamental human right, which is why it has recognition and protection in community and international instruments, enjoying constitutional status. As a municipality, we are prepared to work in the Health area to move from a low-complexity care system to one centered on Primary Health Care based on prevention, promotion, and protection, having all the CAPS as bases for the actions to be developed in field operations. To move from a low-quality system to one of quality and continuous improvement.
ENTITIES THAT SUBSCRIBED
Among the intermediate institutions that signed the July Pact were the Faculty of Food Sciences and the Faculty of Administration Sciences of the National University of Entre Ríos; Commerce, Industry and Services Center of Concordia; various unions and labor guilds; religious entities of the evangelical, Catholic, and Jewish communities; the National Technological University; Citrus Exporters Chamber; sports institutions; Cáritas Concordia; Argentine Red Cross Concordia branch; Electric Cooperative and other Services of Concordia; Food Bank; Concordia Departmental Headquarters of the Police of Entre Ríos; Association and Active Corps of Volunteer Firefighters; Palliative Care Concordia; Fishing Guides Association; neighborhood commissions; NGOs, Departmental School Directorate, among others.
Present, in addition to those who subscribed, were members of the Municipal Cabinet; provincial legislators and councilors.