A delegation of European diplomats went to the Senate yesterday to try to persuade Senate President Ram?n Alburquerque (Dominican Revolutionary Party-Monte Plata) and members of the Senate Finance Committee to stop blocking Senate approval of international loans and project contracts. Senator Alburquerque has put a hold on Senate action on these measures since January 26th, when he and several other PRD Senators had confrontations with police while trying to penetrate a security cordon in order to enter the headquarters of the Dominican Municipal League (LMD). In similar confrontations and protests one Senator was shot by a police agent. The diplomatic delegation visiting him yesterday consisted of the ambassadors of Germany, Italy and the U.K., as well as the head of the European Union (EU) delegation in the DR and senior diplomats from the embassies of France and Spain. Instead of offering promises to approve the measures, Alburquerque stressed to them on the importance of fostering respect for the Constitution and laws (which he has long maintained that the Administration violated repeatedly during the LMD affair), gave them copies of the Senate’s internal regulations on approving such measures and had Senator Fernando Alvarez Bogaert list, one-by-one, the loans and projects that the Senate has approved since the PRD won control of that body on August 16, 1998.
