In the rest of the article, what has been expropriated is ceded in the form of a loan to the cooperative Buenos Aires Una Empresa Nacional “for the achievement of its social objective, with the condition of continuing the cultural, educational, and social activities that it carries out.” The cooperative must also “destine and create spaces of cultural advancement” and for the “development of labor educational practices that allow learning about trades related to hospitality.”
The imprint of Larroque’s bill can be detected in article 7, which says that the cooperative will allocate “at least 30% of the available spaces to provide coverage to gusests in social tourism and (…) medical delegations from the whole country.” Finally, it warns Judge Hualde to stop the eviction process.
It is clear, in this last part, that is it not true that expropriation benefits only a few. It was never true, because 130 cooperators work in the hotel, but above all because the BAUEN, as a recovered business, always held events like those mentioned in the project, which are not a legal obligation, as a casual reader might think, but a recognition to what had already been built so that, as the slogan goes, the BAUEN is everyone’s.
But the law was vetoed, and the later and brief president, Federico Pinedo, declared that, of all the laws voted, the one he feared most is that of the BAUEN. La Nación says that the expropriation, “for Pinedo, means ‘giving an enormous amount of money to a small group of people, taking away money that could go to people who have basic food needs so that 40 people can have a hotel at Callao and Corrientes.’”1
At this point in the story, Pinedo only refutes himself.
- “Federico Pinedo criticizes the expropriation of the Bauen,” in La Nación, 27 November 2015. Recovered from https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/federico-pinedo-critico-la-expropiacion-del-hotel-bauen-nid1849545/↩