The Argentine Government has given in to the opposition and has eliminated more than a hundred articles from its State reform megalaw to seek consensus in Congress.
The president, Javier Milei, has lowered his intention to demand up to four years of special legislative delegations, has eliminated the oil company YPF from the list of state companies that he intends to privatize, and has agreed not to charge export duties on agricultural production concentrated in the provinces far from Buenos Aires.
With an extensive list of modifications, the far-right Government hopes that its project to dismantle the Argentine State finds an agreement among the special commissions that review it so that it can go to the formal vote among deputies this week.
Congress has been in extraordinary sessions for two weeks discussing the omnibus law that Milei sent to legislators on December 28 to fundamentally change a good part of the political, social and economic structure of Argentina.
The 664 articles of the original text have tense the summer vacation season in Argentina, where society has discussed with almost the same intensity as Congress the implications of a reform that contemplates from the special powers of the Executive to take on foreign debt without the guarantee of the Legislature or deciding by decree the calculation of pensions, to the definancing of the National Film Institute (INCAA) or a reform in the legal system so that magistrates wear a toga and a hammer during trials.
The reform had run aground in Congress without finding consensus: last Friday the deadline for the special commissions to rule on its passage to the Lower House expired and, without obtaining the necessary votes, Milei extended that same night by decree the deadline for the legislative sessions .
The Argentine Congress will meet again in an ordinary manner in March, but has until February 15 to discuss the megalaw.
The Government hopes that its new reforms will have the approval of the center-right blocs – the PRO of former president Mauricio Macri, the centrist Radical Civic Union, and a broad bloc of federal Peronists and splinters of minority forces – that would guarantee the approval of the project. in deputies.
Milei has agreed to reduce the period of “public emergency” with which it sought to provide the Executive with legislative powers for two years pending an extension for two more – practically an entire hypothetical first term – to a single year whose extension for another will depend on the congressional vote.
The government party, La Libertad Avanza, has eliminated the state-owned YPF from the list of 41 public companies that it wants to privatize, and has accepted that others, such as Banco Nación or the satellite company ARSAT, have a “partial privatization” while The Government maintains its state control.
The flag airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, the railways, the post office, and public media, such as the Télam news agency, may still be privatized.
It has also accepted a change in the financing of pensions: the Government wanted to give itself the power to decide on increases by decree, now it offers to maintain the quarterly increase due to inflation until March and, from April, a monthly adjustment of pensions according to the Consumer's price index.
“We have not given in anything, there are improvements that we accept,” said President Javier Milei this Monday morning, who in recent weeks has been adding opponents in the streets.
Cultural workers have joined the protests against the fiscal adjustment that have brought workers, retirees or tenants to the streets these days.
This Monday, the protests of film workers against the defunding of the INCAA or the closure of the national film school have been echoed by more than 300 producers, directors and actors from around the world, including the Spanish Pedro Almodóvar and the Mexican Alejandro González-Iñárritu, who have published a letter denouncing the “devastating, incalculable and irreparable effect” of the law against audiovisual production.
“Either we use State resources to finance films that no one watches, or we use that money to feed people,” the president responded.
After the edition of a new draft in the law, the INCAA will maintain a specific allocation of funds and the Government will reverse its intention to close the National Arts Fund, which finances scholarships for artists.
The Government has also agreed not to charge withholdings on exports from agricultural producers in the provinces far from Buenos Aires, to postpone the discussion of its electoral reform for the ordinary sessions of Congress, and has eliminated one of the most controversial points of its law, which defined as an illegal demonstration – and pending prison sentences in case of breaching the protocol against protests – any meeting of “three or more people” in public spaces.
But he has redoubled his bet in other matters.
Milei sought to prohibit “political activity” – proselytizing or partisan – of public officials, and has now also included all state employees.
The Government is confident that its law can be approved this week in the Deputies to pass the next one to the Senate.
Milei has stated that she hopes that the Lower House will discuss the project this Thursday, one day after the general strike called by the General Confederation of Labor that will include the mobilization of unions and social groups at the doors of Congress.
The coincidence of the debate of the deputies and the massive protest called for this Wednesday will serve as a thermometer to measure the social support with which the Government justifies carrying out its economic reforms.
Despite being a minority in Congress, the Milei Government has been threatening for weeks that the adjustment for workers will be even stronger if the rest of the political arc does not accompany its shock policies.
With inflation at 25% last December alone, the popular support on which the Government relies seems to be beginning to falter.
According to a study by the University of San Andrés, 40% of Argentines reject Milei's economic policies.
There is a crack that is exposed: 38% do agree with them.
But, regarding specific points of the megalaw, this study is lapidary: up to 60% reject the privatization of state companies, the delegation of powers to the Executive, special permits for the Government to take on debt or the reform of environmental laws.
According to the study, the most popular measures of the law have nothing to do with the economy: more than half of Argentines welcome charging for public education for non-resident foreigners, easing sentences for uniformed officers who act in “legitimate defense”, that mandatory open primaries be eliminated during elections or that the divorce regime be changed to simplify the process.
Those are the only measures that have majority support.
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