Overview
- Congress’s Energy and Mines Commission passed a bill to extend Reinfo to December 31, 2027, also halting June’s mass exclusions of roughly 50,000 registrants except for those with final convictions for illegal mining, money laundering or human trafficking.
- The measure awaits debate and a vote in the full Congress, as President José Jerí says the government will present a formal, technical proposal during the plenary session.
- Prime Minister Ernesto Álvarez cautioned that the Executive will first observe the law and, if Congress insists, take the case to the Constitutional Court to demand a clear separation between informal actors and illegal operators.
- The Constitutional Court issued a clarification reminding state powers that no formalization regime may grant exemptions from criminal, civil or administrative liability for environmental crimes.
- Mining federations continue protests and encampments outside Congress, experts call for replacing Reinfo with a robust MAPE law and stronger enforcement, and the government named Carlos Wilson Talavera Flores as vice minister of Mines.