Asunción, Agencia IP.- During a special meeting of the Intergovernmental Highway Committee (CIH, by its acronym in Spanish) that analyzes the toll imposed by Argentina, it has been agreed to continue the technical analysis. Meanwhile, Argentina will abstain from interposing embargoes and interdictions of the vessels of the signatory countries for 60 calendar days.
Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay maintained a common position to reject the toll payment, considering that the unilateral imposition of a fee on the Waterway violates current International Law.
It was also concluded that the information provided by Argentina did not allow for verified services provided to navigation and remained insufficient to justify the measure following the provisions of Article 9 of the Agreement.
The mentioned countries state that considering the technical documentation analyzed, the toll tariff contains discriminatory elements. It would be destined to tax the navigation activity itself without counting on the consent of the other involved countries. This is why they reiterate the request to suspend the application of the resolutions 625/2022 and 1023/2022 of their Ministry of Transport and to adopt the necessary measures to fulfil the Agreement of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
All this aims to guarantee navigability freedom, the freedom of transit, and to abstain from applying other measures, explained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.