In a race against the clock concluded in the early morning of October 21the process of General Budget of the Nation for the year 2027 suffered a legislative collapse that altered the course of public finances.
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Although the plenary sessions of Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives The corresponding votes were advancedan irreconcilable discrepancy between the final texts prevented the consolidation of the law before the constitutional deadline of October 20 at midnight.
Approval of the General Budget of the Nation for 2027 Photo:Minhacienda
The central point of contention focused on article 65 of the projecttext focused on tax hedging operations to mitigate variations in oil prices, liquid fuels and the exchange rate.
While the Senate plenary voted on the provision without modifications after the senator Juan Caicedo withdraw a proposal for change to leave it solely as a record, in the House of Representatives the situation took a totally different course.
In that corporation, the congressmen They gave the green light to the same article but integrating the modification promoted by Caicedo, which had the formal endorsement and signature of the Minister of Finance, Miguel Gomez Martinez.
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By approving divergent wordings in both legislative chambers, the Colombian legal system imposes the mandatory formation of a conciliation commission to unify the text. However, the pressure of time prevented the integration of the conciliation table and the vote on a unified document within the permitted legal term.
In fact, given the procedural defect detected, Diego GonzalezSecretary General of the Senate, left evidence this morning of Wednesday, October 21 in a letter that the official link with all approved proposals will be published. González confirmed that, while the Senate endorsed article 65 in its original version, the House of Representatives chose to incorporate changes, which would configure the error that sinks the joint.
🔴 The Secretary of the Senate, Diego González, confirmed through a press release that in the Senate plenary session, article 65 of the General Budget of the Nation was approved without proposals. However, the House would have included a proposal withdrawn in the Senate. González reiterated that the official link containing all the proposals approved in the Senate plenary session was sent and is available for public consultation.
— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) October 21, 2026
Why is the 2027 General Budget sinking?
In this regard, Law 5 of 1992 clearly establishes that no bill can conclude its journey in the Congress of the Republic if it omits the conciliation stage when discrepancies arise in the final articles.
The absence of this technical phase led various political sectors to attribute the failure to the legal team of the Treasury portfolio for not anticipating the oversight during the filing of the parallel votes. Faced with this crossroads, Colombian regulations contemplates a direct contingency mechanism: the power of the Executive Branch to issue the financial navigation chart through a presidential decree.
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What’s next with the General Budget?
Under this exceptional scheme, the Casa de Nariño would have to adopt the approved presentation as a reference during the first debate held in the joint economic commissions of the Congress of the Republic.
Said global amount would remain at a figure close to 634.9 billion pesosguaranteeing the fiscal operation of the State, but leaving out specific adjustments and additions that had been progressively included in the plenary discussions.
Minister of Finance, Miguel Gómez. Photo:House of Representatives
Can the processing error in the General Budget be corrected?
The legislative unforeseen leaves open two readings in the constitutional field. On the one hand, one current maintains that the procedural vice comprehensively sinks the entire joint of the budget due to non-compliance with the stages established in Law 5.
On the other hand, there are legal positions that recall antecedents of the Constitutional Courtwhere the high court has defined that in analogous situations the invalidity only falls on the individual provisions that did not achieve textual agreement, protecting the rest of the law to prevent the paralysis of the state apparatus.
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To resolve the room for maneuver on the excluded items, There are alternatives on the institutional horizon from the beginning of the year.
One of the ways exposed is that the president’s administration Abelardo De La Espriella call Congress to extraordinary sessions in January 2027 to process a budget addition and transfer project with an urgent message, seeking to reincorporate allocations to sensitive sectors such as health and education.
For now, the formal definition of the fiscal scenario will be subject to official certifications issued by the general secretaries of the Senate and the House of Representatives on the text approved during the voting days, technical input with which the House of Nariño will structure the pertinent decrees to ensure the financial functioning of the country.
* Article developed with AI support and reviewed by a journalist.
