Buenos Aires, Dec 17 (NA) -- Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation Federico Sturzenegger compared the Association of Grape Growers of Mendoza with the president of the AFA, Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia, for having taken legal action to stop a deregulation measure in the vitivinicultural sector, and accused them of trying to reinstate market control mechanisms.
"You have to hit the pig to make the owner appear," stated the official in an extensive message published on social network X, questioning the legal presentation that seeks to restore the mandatory nature of the Grape Intake Certificate (CIU), a procedure that the Government made optional within its deregulation policy.
Sturzenegger explained that almost half of the producers stopped using the CIU once it ceased to be mandatory.
"45% of producers who were previously required to do so, later did not use it. That is, they did not want the members to be able to choose," he pointed out, and maintained that behind both positions there are corporate interests.
Regarding the grape growers' claim, Sturzenegger raised two hypotheses.
"The first is that the CIU functioned as a market control mechanism, by concentrating key information on the movement of the grape, which —he indicated— could facilitate cartelization practices," he stated.
The second possibility, he added, is that without the certificate it is difficult to collect a private rate linked to the Argentine Wine Corporation (Coviar), whose mandate, he maintained, has expired.
"Without the CIU it is difficult for them to collect that rate.
"The value of the CIU emerges as an essential instrument for the implementation of anticompetitive practices," he affirmed.
"There the real interest appears," he hinted.
"It is very sad to see a sector that has so much to offer become hostage to these interests, when it has much more to gain in an environment of freedom," he expressed.
Finally, he defended the deregulation policy promoted by President Javier Milei and stated that "regulation, in general, is bad, a wolf in sheep's clothing."
"We hope that the Judiciary will side with production and freedom, and not with anticompetitive practices and the interests of one or two corporations," he concluded.
