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Argentina, Tremonti questioned by the Pd about the Tango Bonds
Reuters Italia
January 15, 2010

Friday, January 15, 2010

ROME, January 15 (Reuters) Pd senator, Sandro Gozi, asked Minister Giulio Tremonti, in an interrogation, to take action on the issue of the tango bonds and in particular to ask Switzerland and the Bank for International Settlements why more than 40 billion dollars in Argentinean foreign reserves are deposited with BIS rather than being used to repay the subscribers of the bonds in default.

Gozi cites the complaint made by the American Task Force Argentina, an American bondholder organization that opposes the attempt of Buenos Aires to offer a new swap on 20 billion dollars of debt still outstanding, according to which Argentina's central bank would take about 40 billion dollars from its reserves (equivalent to approximately 80% of the total reserves) found at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

"It's good to point out that the foreign reserves held at BIS by the central banks of other countries do not exceed four per cent of the total reserves of each. It seems clear that Argentina is using BIS to avoid paying the debt assumed in 2001 with the international community and investors, including over 180 thousand Italian investors, to whom its debt exceeds four billion dollars (which today could be tripled with accrued interest)," Gozi said in a statement announcing the interrogation.

"This is why I questioned Tremonti, who has always been disinterested in the scam of the tango bonds to hundreds of thousands of Italians to ask BIS and the Swiss government to explain to the international community why more than 40 billion in Argentinean foreign reserves are in its coffers, rather than being used to repay the investors defrauded by the government of Buenos Aires," added the senator who is the head of the Pd in the Committee on EU policies.

The leader of this group of bondholders, ATFA (American Task Force Argentina), is Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, who will be in Italy next week to support the reasons to oppose the new proposed swap.

The Argentine government is awaiting a green light from the SEC to publicize its new exchange offer that should be filed in Europe in Luxembourg and arrive in Italy via the so-called European passport to start between the end of January and the beginning of February.

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