Milei's Government is racing against the clock to approve the law that aims to dismantle the Argentine State

The Argentine Government is moving against the clock to approve its State reform law in Congress.

At the end of December, President Javier Milei presented a megalaw that provides the Executive with extraordinary powers and changes a good part of the political, social and economic structure of Argentina.

The president intended that the initiative be treated expressly and approved without modifications.

But his party, La Libertad Avanza, has had to negotiate with other parliamentary blocs and give in to some of the demands so that his initiative has a chance of being voted on in Congress.

The opinion in committees should have arrived before this Sunday, something that did not happen, and the Executive has been forced to extend the deadline for extraordinary sessions until February 15 so that the initiative can reach the Chamber, where the party de Milei is in the minority.

The initiative has been being discussed in three specialized commissions for two weeks.

The opposition and independent experts have expressed their opinions and objections about the law, while members of Milei's Cabinet have defended the project.

The initiative had to obtain an opinion before this Sunday—that is, 10 days before the end of the period of extraordinary sessions originally called until January 31—.

Afterwards, it could go to the Chamber of Deputies to be voted on.

Since that did not happen, the Executive extended the deadline for the extraordinary sessions.

On Friday night, with a decree, he extended it until February 15 and thus granted himself more time to continue negotiating.

The Government trusts that its openness to negotiating what it has dubbed the “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines” will speed up the process.

“Having come across a reasonable opposition makes us happy,” said presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni this Friday, who avoided talking about “negotiations” with the opposition during his daily press conference.

“We do not negotiate, but we accept all suggestions.

The Government has every intention of working on the law over the weekend,” Adorni said.

Challenge in the streets

The week ahead will be tense in Buenos Aires.

Eyes will be on Congress, where a possible ruling will clarify after weeks of speculation which deputies align with the Government to promote the reform.

Before its doors, in addition, the Government will experience another challenge on the streets, probably the biggest so far.

The General Confederation of Workers, the strongest labor union in the country, called for a strike with mobilization on Wednesday in front of Congress, which this week was joined by the broadest sectors of Peronism, who have anticipated their rejection of the measures. .

The office of Martín Menem, president of the Chamber of Deputies and nephew of the former neoliberal president admired by the current president, has been a center of dialogue these days with that “reasonable opposition” that the presidential spokesperson celebrates: the PRO of former president Mauricio Macri, the centrist Radical Civic Union, and a broad bloc of federal Peronists and splinters of minority forces.

The political journalist Carlos Pagni has defined this new bloc as a

, in reference to the large bloc of non-aligned congressmen on whom another far-right, Jair Bolsonaro, relied to govern Brazil between 2019 and 2022. The Argentine far-right has 38 deputies own among 257 seats, and the 94 votes that this bloc adds are already seen as fundamental and ready for Milei's Government.

With your support, the Government hopes to approve an omnibus law that Congress sent on December 28.

The project has 664 articles with which, among a very long list of reforms, Milei intends to change the pension system, privatize state companies, enable money laundering, pay public universities for foreigners or grant itself legislative powers for a period " of emergency” extendable until the end of its mandate, in 2027. The Government defended for weeks its legitimacy to impose the law based on the popularity it maintains after a month in office.

“It is clear that society supports.

The question is whether the politicians are going to rise to the occasion," threatened the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, while announcing on January 10 that the International Monetary Fund had once again enabled transfers to Argentina after seeing with good eyes the fiscal adjustment that began in December.

But the law will not be approved as the Government intends and it will have to give in if it wants the support of opposition blocs.

According to local press reports, the Government has already agreed to eliminate or modify some of the most controversial points of its omnibus law and has acknowledged “errors” in the writing of the text.

The Government agreed, for example, to review the delegation of extraordinary powers to the Executive, which in the original project is planned for a period of two years - extendable to four - and which the opposition demands that it be for one year, extendable for another.

The Government would also agree to abandon special taxes on “regional economies”, as export products such as citrus fruits, cotton, yerba mate or tobacco are called in Argentina that are obtained outside the humid pampas;

would eliminate the state oil company YPF from the list of public companies to be privatized;

or he would give up on his electoral reform and even that of the pension system.

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