By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net

Legislators debuted a new tool yesterday to speed debate on 11 laws that would implement the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), which was approved in a national referendum last month.

Pro-CAFTA legislators sought to apply a fast-track procedure to perhaps the most controversial CAFTA law: a proposal to open the state telecommunications monopoly, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), to competition. The procedure limits debate even further than 41-bis, another fast-track tool that has been applied to four CAFTA implementation laws. The new fast-track tool will likely come to a vote today.

Pro-CAFTA legislators are scrambling to speed debate on the so-called CAFTA implementation agenda, which must be passed by Feb. 29, 2008, although Costa Rica can request an extension from the other signing countries.

“Our legislative tools are becoming increasingly limited,” said Elizabeth Fonseca, faction head for the anti-CAFTA Citizen Action Party (PAC). “They are limiting legislators' right to present motions. They are limiting time for debate.”

Fonseca denied recent press reports that Citizen Action has decided to cooperate more with pro-CAFTA legislators. She said the party has been presenting fewer motions to the CAFTA laws only because the fast-track procedure prevents all of them from being discussed. Without that procedure, motions can be a significant drag on legislative debate.

“I've said that the motions should focus more on quality than quantity,” she said. “If a project has 41-bis, it's the same if we present 20 motions as if we present 1,000 motions.”

The Legislative Assembly has been making bumpy but steady progress on passing the 11 CAFTA laws. Legislators voted Monday to hold extra sessions Tuesday and yesterday morning to discuss the agenda. But Tuesday morning's session was canceled because one legislator from the pro-CAFTA coalition got stuck in traffic and arrived late.

The pro-CAFTA block has 38 legislators – exactly the number required to hold session. If not all legislators attend session, the anti-CAFTA legislators refuse to make up the quorum.