Overview
- Lawmakers approved the draft with a 17–3 vote and one abstention, advancing a two-year extension of the mining formalization register to December 31, 2027.
- The text freezes ongoing and future exclusion processes and enables potential reinstatement of roughly 50,000 records removed in June, with a carveout excluding people with firm convictions for serious crimes.
- The package adds a national census of artisanal and small-scale mining, mandatory geographic verification through a single window, and a 60‑day deadline for regional governments to transfer files to the Energy and Mines Ministry.
- Business associations and the SNMPE denounced the move as a setback that risks breaching Andean Community commitments, while the Constitutional Court has branded the register a failure and warned against liability shields.
- Thousands of miners kept up protests near Congress and vowed to stay until a plenary vote and presidential promulgation, as a bid to split the vote on the extension and reinstatements was rejected.