Colombian Congress approves $201.1 billion budget for 2027

Colombian lawmakers approved spending distributions for next year's 634.9 trillion pesos ($201.14 billion) budget early ‌on Tuesday, trimming spending linked to a 10-year-old peace agreement, boosting defense funds and reducing debt service payments.

The budget, which projects a 2027 fiscal deficit of 9.4% of gross domestic product, is a significant increase from the 555.8 trillion peso budget for ‌this year. The 2027 budget allocates 144 trillion pesos ($45.62 billion) for debt repayment, 93 trillion pesos for education, 81.6 trillion ‌pesos for health, and 74.9 trillion pesos for defense.

The bigger budget comes as Colombia, Latin America's fourth-largest economy, struggles to put its public accounts in order. Public debt is expected to rise this year and next, moving the country further from regaining the investment-grade rating it lost in 2021. The government ⁠of ​new right-wing President Abelardo De ⁠La Espriella had promised to trim remaining spending for this year and said it plans to propose a "Rescue Law" to Congress to cut 2027 spending ⁠and reduce the fiscal deficit to 7.2% of GDP.

Lawmakers in the lower house approved the budget bill with 112 votes in ​favor and only one against it. "Thank you all for giving us this vote of confidence. We are going ⁠to succeed in getting the country out of this very complex economic situation," Finance Minister Miguel Gomez said after the Senate passed the bill on ⁠Monday.

SPENDING ​CUTS The budget cuts funds for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) - the court created under a 2016 peace deal with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas to try rebel leaders and ex-soldiers for war crimes.

It also reduces ⁠operational funding for the Search Unit for Disappeared People (UBPD), created under the peace deal to look for at least 137,000 ⁠people who vanished during the ⁠ongoing armed conflict. The two entities and advocates say the cuts will limit investigations and trials into human rights violations, as well as exhumations and identifications of the disappeared.

($1 = 3,156.5000 Colombian ‌pesos)