-What is your assessment of Friday's meeting between the Government and the governors?
-The meeting was good, long, we were all able to talk and expand, each one from their ideas, which are clearly not homogeneous.
It should be something normal, habitual, a call from the Nation to the provinces, that we can meet.
It should not be surprising that the governors meet with the Government.
There are many issues that we have to solve together.
-Is profit one of them? The governors asked for progress to be made in reversing the changes of Kirchnerism and now they do not want that measure to be taken?
-There are governors who at the time supported the decision made by the previous Government, within the framework of the demagoguery of the electoral campaign, to end the tax on high salary income that exists in all countries in the world, even the most developed.
It's not even that the reversal was a request from the governors.
The Government told us on more than one occasion that it was a demand from international organizations, which was also requested by the International Monetary Fund.
I like to lower taxes, but it would not have been one of the taxes that I would have lowered.
There are other taxes that are much more distorting and regressive, such as Gross Income, VAT, Country Tax or field withholdings.
The Check Tax should be eliminated long before Profits.
We are facing a good opportunity to turn the page and discuss it again.
-Does it bother you that it is suggested that the governors boycott the reforms proposed by Milei?
-I don't have time to be offended.
I have to administer a province that does not have a peso, after being 20 years under the government of another political sign.
I have to solve problems, I cannot dwell on issues that could affect me.
Furthermore, I don't feel addressed when people talk about serial spenders or betrayals.
I made in Entre Ríos an adjustment greater than that made by the national government.
We lowered unproductive spending and privileges like never before in history.
We reduced political positions by half, 50% no longer exist.
It didn't go down any further because the State has to function.
We also lowered the contracts of the Legislature by 70%, we allocated the cars that were used for the personal use of officials to the Police, because everything is missing there and I do not have the money to equip the Police as they need and as they deserve.
In the Legislature we are moving forward with projects such as Clean Record, Access to Information, Public Ethics and also with the elimination of privilege retirements.
-Is the money from the transfers arriving in a timely manner from Nación to Entre Ríos?
-I have not received a single peso from discretionary transfers in these three months of management.
But those are not the resources that I demand, because I believe that the President has the right not to send them.
His name indicates it: they are at the discretion of the national government, which on the path to zero deficit has to use all the tools it can.
Discretionary transfers increased with Kirchnerism, from the removal of automatic resources from the provinces and became discretionary and then conditioned with them those who did not think like that government.
According to the Constitution, except those linked to Customs, all taxes are co-participatory.
There are many who are not today because, based on different agreements, they were given specific assignments for the Nation, especially for ANSeS.
Let's discuss those things.
The transfers that by law should arrive and are not arriving, such as those from the social security funds not transferred for 13 provinces, among which is Entre Ríos, or the compensation of the fiscal pact.
Until 2017, 30% of the Check Tax was shared.
There is a huge debt to pay to the provinces.
-What will happen if Congress does not advance with the Bases Law that the Government is promoting?
-The Bases Law is an opportunity and it is a law that I agree with, not because we are expecting something in return;
In fact, they didn't offer us anything, except as a matter of conviction in my case.
I am going to support it, like the fiscal package.
I fully agree with the North that the President is trying to advance.
If this failed before, it is because it was done poorly, or because work was carried out inadequately, or because there was no will to carry out these reforms effectively.
Interview with Rogelio Frigerio.
-Are you worried about the direction of the economy? Or do you think recovery is this way?
-The analysis I do about economic policies and their efficiency is done with great humility, because until now we have all made mistakes.
This is demonstrated by the fact that in the last 70 years we have been one of the countries with the highest inflation in the world.
From Frondizi to this point we have all done things very badly for one from a pulpit to point a finger at which path to take.
We must give the Government time.
They faced something different, they started with fiscal balance.
It's never been done this way, so let's at least give it a chance for them to succeed.
I am concerned that salaries are becoming less and less, but I believe that all Argentines are betting that the Government will do well.
There is no room for other frustration.
-Do you feel in Entre Ríos the transfer of a sector of society to health and public education?
-In the Interior, health and public education is more massive than in the AMBA or in the big cities.
There are no options in many places.
Health is, directly, the center of the people's health.
Or nothing.
It is going to be a very hard year and the State's costs will surely increase to face this social situation, which is dramatic.
My province lost the equivalent of more than a monthly budget from one year to the next.
The mix between the recession and this inflationary process that still continues greatly complicates the quality of life of Argentines.
Rogelio Frigerio, governor in Entre Ríos.
-How do you see Kirchnerism? Did it change in relation to your times of opposition in the Cambiemos government?
-I don't think his imprint has changed much.
They did not vote for us a single law.
We never had the support of Kirchnerism, not even in the laws that we were able to pass.
I don't know what their intentions are, but I hope that for the good of Argentina they want the Government to do well.
-Are the tensions between the provinces and the Nation going to be resolved yes or yes in the Supreme Court of Justice?
-It's part of your task.
There is only one arbiter in the difference between the powers of government, which is the Court.
If politics cannot fix political problems, Justice ends up fixing them.
It is not the ideal scenario, but it is what the Constitution mandates.
I hope we agree before.
-Does the institutional aspect also need to be addressed, beyond the economic context?
-I am one of those who believes that the development of a country is linked to its institutional strength.
The countries that did well had things that Argentina lacks.
We are in a prehistoric situation.
First we have to get well, put an end to inflation, but for a sustained development process to come later we also have to take care of the institutional issues, understanding, among other things, that we live in a federal country.
Not going back and being able to leave populism in the past.
-Is there a risk of falling into right-wing populism?
-The institutions are the ones that will have the responsibility to ensure that this does not happen.
"It would be very irresponsible of me to be interested in the PRO's internal affairs with all the problems I have to solve"
The governor of Entre Ríos, Rogelio Frigerio.
Photo: Martín Bonetto.
A reference for developmentalism in Argentina and grandson of his namesake and one of the main political allies of Arturo Frondizi, Rogelio Frigerio was Minister of the Interior during the four years of Mauricio Macri's government and continues to be an important voice within the PRO, which is heading towards a change of authorities on March 19, with the former president of the Nation as a candidate for leadership of the party.
Although he continues the topic sideways, the emergencies he has to face as governor of Entre Ríos do not give him space to delve fully into the internal party, with many dissonant voices.
"It would be very irresponsible of me to be interested in the internal support of the PRO with all the problems I have to solve," he says.
However, with the other two governors of the party, Ignacio Torres (Chubut) and Jorge Macri (City of Buenos Aires), he is part of an extensive nucleus of leaders who will end up giving Macri their endorsement to assume leadership of the party.
"It seems good to me that the president or founder of the PRO wants to take the reins of the party. There is no mood against it, quite the opposite. There is enough support for that possibility to happen," he says.
As a representative of an Interior province, however, he asks that the party have a "more federal perspective, different from what it has always had."
For Frigerio, from its origin the PRO was "a metropolitan party", which now has the chance to change that profile, based on the multiplicity of mayors and governors that it has distributed throughout the country.
"Today it can be transformed into a serious national party, I hope that opportunity is not missed," he reflects.
The governor feels much more identified with the integration of Together for Change at the national level, with the 10 provinces that he currently manages, distributed between the PRO, radicalism and allied forces.
"The ten governors made the decision to support the space, so it unites us all in common and we have been able to sustain ourselves in these three months that were of enormous complexity," he says.
Frigerio cannot even imagine the 2025 campaign and how the PRO, and even Together for Change, can play politically.
Although he does believe that "we are a much broader force in the provinces than at the national level."
And he cites examples: "In Entre Ríos, 28 political parties coexist within the space and the same thing happens in the city of Buenos Aires, in Mendoza and in Corrientes."
Thus, for what is to come, he believes that we must conserve and promote even more "that frontist spirit", which "has been sustained in the interior of the country through the support of the people."
However, almost a year and a half before an eventual midterm election, he acknowledges that "I have not had time to do an electoral analysis for the future" nor does he believe that it is the time to do so.
Itinerary
Rogelio Frigerio was born on January 7, 1970, he is an economist from the University of Buenos Aires and a political leader for more than two decades.
Godson of President Arturo Frondizi, and grandson of Rogelio Julio Frigerio, both fathers of developmentalism, he had contact with political life since his childhood.
At the age of 15, he formally began military service in the MID (Integration and Development Movement).
Specialized in Planning and Economic Development, he studied Economic Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), where he later was an undergraduate and graduate professor, and worked for 10 years in the private sector, in the consulting firm Economía & Regiones, created and directed for him.
At the end of the '90s, he served as Secretary of Economic and Regional Programming, under the presidency of Carlos Menem.
He was Minister of the Interior during the Cambiemos government, from 2015 to 2019, with Mauricio Macri as president, national deputy from 2021 to 2023 and in December of last year he began his term as governor of Entre Ríos, after winning the October elections with 41.71% of the votes.
Right now
A project:
That Entre Ríos once again occupy the place of leadership that it once occupied in Argentina.
A challenge:
Fulfill what I promised to the people of Entre Ríos.
A dream:
That we Argentines can leave our differences behind.
A hero:
José de San Martín and Justo José de Urquiza.
A leader:
Arturo Frondizi.
A meal:
Roast.
One drink:
Two.
Wine and mate.
A book:
The Dagger, by Jorge Fernández Díaz.
A film:
The Snow Society.
A series:
Peaky Blinders.
A society that I admire:
The German one.
A pleasure:
My family.
A childhood memory:
Working in the field in the south of Entre Ríos.