With the Omnibus Law fallen, another storm front opens up for the Government in Congress: the mega DNU.
It is pending approval and while Kirchnerism insists every week with a session to reject it in the Senate, there are already sectors of the dialogue opposition that demand the constitution of the bicameral Legislative Procedure commission that must deal with it.
As Clarín said, Vice President Victoria Villarruel has been receiving pressure from the Unión por la Patria bloc, which has already asked her twice to call a special session to discuss the mega decree of 300 articles that includes since the repeal of the Rental Law. even a labor reform.
"Kirchnerism has to understand that there is a change of era. Argentines chose a path. And the Senate agenda is no longer dictated by Kirchnerism, but by dialogue and the participation of all senators," responded Villarruel, who continues to kick the can down the road. decision.
But the pressure begins to add to other actors.
The truth is that the DNU entered Congress on January 5.
The bicameral Legislative Procedure
had 10 days to deal with it and not only did it not do so, but it is not even constituted.
The DNU treatment law establishes that once that period has passed, either chamber
can directly submit it to a vote
in the chamber.
It must be clarified that "there is no unified position in any of the blocks" of the new majority - which Villarruel formed with the UCR, the PRO and federal benches - but they also admit that the decree signed by Javier Milei is "criticized by a large part" of the senators.
After the grievances and decisions against the President's governors, the situation became even more complicated.
"The latest events and how the Executive is handling the dialogue and the search for consensus do not help," said a legislative source.
PRO senator Guadalupe Tagliaferri explained that "the DNU, in its first article,
declares the emergency in different areas
that the Executive Branch had already modified in the Omnibus Law."
Specifically, the decree signed in December by the President declares emergencies in economic, financial, fiscal, administrative, pension, tariff, health and social matters until December 31, 2025. At least 2 of the 8 (fiscal and social)
were eliminated by the Government itself
during the negotiation of the law in Deputies.
For a sector of the opposition "it is difficult for the DNU to be approved because in this instance
it is all or nothing
."
"The problem with the DNU is the Executive's, which has to decide what to do with that tool, if another DNU is sent to modify it, if it removes some topics or converts it into laws structured by topics," they stated from the radical bench.
The UCR, one of the most critical groups of the DNU, more for its form than its substance, had proposed
three options
: that they send it in the form of a law - even Senator Carolina Losada presented the decree as a mirror bill - that divide the DNU into parts or modify the DNU law to be able to approve some parts of the text and not others.
The radicals understand that at some point
Milei's DNU will have to be addressed,
as well as the more than 100 decrees that were left pending without treatment from the Alberto Fernández government.
"The most prudent thing would be for the DNU to go to the Legislative Processing Commission, beyond the fact that the body is authorized to deal with it on the premises,"
the Mendoza radical Mariana Juri told
Clarín .
It is clear that the lack of approval of the DNU leaves the Government in permanent tension because although there is no intention of a sector of the opposition to reject it, they also see it as
"unlikely that it will be approved as it is
. "
"It's a time bomb, because Kirchnerism is going to ask for sessions until one day it achieves a quorum.
It's not far away
," says a legislator.
Unión por la Patria, if it has perfect attendance, has 33 senators.
You need
four more
for a quorum.
Federal officials Carlos "Camau" Espínola and Edgardo Kueider consider the decree unconstitutional, they are willing to reject it if there is a session.
They would also have the senator from Río Negro Mónica Silva.
But here there is also an internal conflict within La Libertad Avanza, because although Villarruel has already appointed the 8 senators who have to make up the Bicameral,
Martín Menem has not yet done the same with the representatives of the lower House
.
There is an open conflict due to the differences in interpretation between the ruling party and Unión por la Patria.
The thing is that Menem only wants to give Kirchnerism three places in the bicameral, but from the block commanded by Germán Martínez they are asking for four chairs.
Last week, the libertarian caucus in the Senate sent a letter to its fellow Deputies to demand that the Lower House appoint its legislators.
That will be Villarruel's strategy to not open the venue: to maintain that the procedure
must follow its steps and first needs to be debated in commission
.
The commission that regulates presidential decrees has not met since November 8, 2021, while in 2022 it only met to establish itself without discussing any DNU.
During Alberto Fernández's administration, 180 DNUs were issued.
Of that total, there are 39 with clearance to be treated on site while another 64 were never discussed by the commission.