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A Libre congressman said the opposition party supports modernizing Honduras's state power company ENEE but rejects its division into separate corporations, signaling a key policy divide between parties over the utility's future structure.

With ENEE facing a daily loss exceeding L50 million (about $2 million) and an accumulated deficit of L120 billion, civil-society groups and small-business leaders are urging lawmakers to approve energy reforms that would restructure the state utility into separate generation, transmission, and distribution units.

Lawmakers will hold special sessions on June 30 and July 1 to debate and vote on government-backed reforms to restructure state utility ENEE, with Congress president Tomás Zambrano stressing that privatization is off the table.

Congress began first-round debate on a 18-article bill to reorganize and strengthen Honduras's power system, which still requires two more votes before final passage.

A coalition of Honduran civic leaders has presented Congress with 12 preliminary conditions for the electric-sector reform, including legal protections against privatization of the state-owned energy company ENEE and stronger public oversight of its strategic assets.

The Libre party's congressional bloc has proposed a popular consultation to let Hondurans decide the future direction of ENEE, the state electrical utility.

The union representing ENEE employees opposes splitting the state utility into three private companies and proposes instead an internal reorganization by distribution, operation, transmission, and generation aimed at reducing losses while keeping the utility public.

Milton Puerto, president of Congress's Energy Commission, says private companies will be barred from using assets of the state electricity utility ENEE as collateral when seeking investment loans.

A draft law sent to Congress would restructure Honduras's electric system by splitting state utility ENEE into a holding company, creating an independent system operator, and opening the market to new generators and retailers, with experts projecting potential savings of $3.6 billion.