COLOMBIA
Analysts
Juan Carlos Echeverry
Former President of Ecopetrol, Finance Minister
Andres Escobar
Former Deputy Finance Minister
Mauricio Santa Maria
Former President of ANIF, Planning MinisterDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Slide Presentation: Colombia - A turbulent year
COLOMBIA · Report · 17 May 2024 · 1 response
Gain insight into the current challenges facing Colombia as we discuss the prospects for rate cuts, health care and pension reform, and the fiscal situation in our slide presentation "Colombia - A turbulent year".
On campaign financing limits and an eventual impeachment of the president
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 08 May 2024 · 2 responses
Norms regulating campaign financing are simple and strict in Colombia. On May 8th, the National Electoral Council (NEC) is considering a draft ruling indicating that, in the 2022 presidential elections, Gustavo Petro’s campaign surpassed the financing limits. We follow the analysis of the renowne...
15 minutes of fame for everyone
COLOMBIA · Report · 30 Apr 2024 · 1 response
The drastic reduction of Colombia’s external imbalance, in the last quarter of 2022 and all of 2023, was a most welcome development. For starters, monetary policy decisions are no longer facing the two-headed hydra of inflation plus excessive domestic demand. Furthermore, FDI is comfortably finan...
Power supply dangerously close to critical condition
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 18 Apr 2024 · 2 responses
The Electricity and Gas Regulatory Commission (CREG) issues on a regular basis a reference daily path for the National Interconnected System reservoirs’ aggregate level. This path is considered to be the minimum required to guarantee that power supply meets demand; should the aggregate level fall...
Healthcare reform sunk in Congress, but reform drive continues at full steam
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 03 Apr 2024
In spite of resorting to all the tricks in the known universe, the government could not stop the sinking of the healthcare reform in Congress, after 8 Senators in the 7th Committee presented a motion to sink it two weeks ago (Ponencia de Arichivo). After many days and weeks in which the governmen...
Parade or charade?
COLOMBIA · Report · 22 Mar 2024 · 1 response
There were many reactions to President Gustavo Petro’s idea of convening a Constitutional Assembly. Possibly the most synthesizing one came from constitutional lawyer Juan Manuel Charry, who wrote that Petro doesn’t know whether his role is to subvert the institutional order or to govern (“no sab...
Finally, the C-word
COLOMBIA · In Brief · 18 Mar 2024 · 1 response
On Friday, March 15, in a speech aimed to invigorate his supporters, out of the blue, President Petro came out with a proposal everyone feared since he ran for president; namely, aiming to change the constitution via a Constitutional Assembly (CA). He finally recurred to the C-word. In his own wo...
Are these the dog days of fiscal consolidation?
COLOMBIA · Report · 22 Feb 2024 · 1 response
President Gustavo Petro uses the expression “golpe blando” to mean a style of soft coup-d’état that doesn’t involve force, massive street demonstrations or the actual ouster of a president. Rather, under this concept, the seizure of power can occur subtly, via legal initiatives, investigations fo...
“They won’t let us govern”
COLOMBIA · Report · 31 Jan 2024 · 1 response
In reaction to the Procuraduría General’s three-month suspension of Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva, President Gustavo Petro paranoically pointed to a conspiracy against his government. But events may suggest other conclusions: a mishandled bidding process that led to a probably successful suit by ...