Budget blunder

COLOMBIA - In Brief 21 Oct 2026 by Andrés Escobar Arango

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Even though Congress approved the 2027 budget before the constitutional deadline (October 20th), a serious procedural mistake was made. The floor of the House approved a proposition that was not considered by the floor of the Senate, a situation that would have required an additional step: delegates from each chamber must negotiate a unified version, which is then taken to a vote in both plenaries. The fact that this final step was not taken means the 2027 budget was not approved with all the formalities required. In all likelihood, once this misstep is challenged, the Constitutional Court will rule the formal procedural flaw voids the final budget “approved” by Congress. The Constitution states that if Congress does not meet the budget before the deadline mentioned above, the Government must issue the budget by decree. Looks like an easy fix, but things are not that simple. The decree can only contain the budget submitted by the Government on August 26th with the changes approved by the economic committees back in September; it cannot go ahead and issue some unified version of the texts approved by the floors of each chamber a couple of days ago. This means that all the decisions agreed upon in October, once the budget left the economic committees and moved to the plenaries, will no longer part of the budget. Just to give an example, a decision to increase the healthcare budget by COP 3 trillion (0.14% of GDP) cannot be included in the decree to be issued by the Government; some decisions to increase budget allocations for electricity subsidies and investment, and reduce the debt amortizations did not survive either. Once the decree with the 2027 budget is issued, bri...