The Argentine Senate deals a hard blow to Milei with the rejection of the mega-decree of cuts

Javier Milei's plan to deregulate the Argentine economy at a stroke has once again collided with the Legislative Branch.

This Thursday, the Argentine Senate dealt a setback to the ultra Government by voting against the great decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) with which Milei inaugurated his presidential mandate days after taking office, on December 10.

It is a more than real coup: the more than 300 repeals of laws and economic reforms included in the decree are still in force because to invalidate them requires the rejection of both chambers, a condition imposed by Kirchnerism when it was in power.

However, the resounding defeat – 42 votes against, 25 in favor and five abstentions – makes it clear that Milei must change his strategy to avoid more legislative setbacks in the future.

Whether he wants to or not, he has to sit down and negotiate.

Just a month ago he also failed to get the Chamber of Deputies to approve his ambitious Base Law, although his team is working on a new draft to try again.

It also aggravates the tension within the ruling party due to the decision of the vice president, Victoria Villarruel, to enable the debate when they did not have the votes to stop it.

The ruling party, La Libertad Avanza, has only 7 senators out of 72, and 38 deputies out of 257, which forces the Government to weave a strategy of pacts that is resisting it for now.

The DNU is now in the hands of the Lower House.

If it rejects it, it would lose validity immediately;

Otherwise, it will retain legal validity.

Today it seems very difficult for the Chamber of Deputies to also vote against it, but it would be too high a risk for Milei.

The president needs the support of Congress to provide his economic plan with the legal solidity that investors and the International Monetary Fund demand.

The session started after eleven o'clock, but the adverse result could be seen coming from the moment the ruling party proposed postponing the treatment for three weeks and the Chamber denied it.

Nine hours later, the vote confirmed the negative result.

The argument most used by the opposition to reject it was its alleged unconstitutionality.

“Basically we are facing an atrocious abuse of rights by the National Executive Branch,” stated Kirchnerist senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti.

“I am going to vote against because the DNU is unconstitutional.

"I'm not saying it, but the entire spectrum of constitutionalists in Argentina says it," said Martín Lousteau, for the Radical Civic Union.

“If it can modify 300 laws, this Congress must be closed,” added José Mayans, head of the National and Popular Front bloc, the first parliamentary minority.

During the debate, the ruling party and the opposition clashed over the effects of the decree and the economic policy applied by Milei to date.

“What hurts them the most is that we are doing things well,” said the ruling party Ezequiel Atauche, giving as an example the downward path of inflation – although it is still higher than what was under the Government of Alberto Fernández – and the accumulation of 10,000 million reserves of the Central Bank.

“They all embrace together to maintain the status quo so that things don't really change,” Atauche added.

“This DNU makes services – such as electricity, gas and water – go up more and more and salaries go down,” Mayans objected.

The decree at stake modifies the Civil and Commercial Code to enshrine the free choice of currency in contracts, opens the door to the privatization of state companies and repeals more than 80 laws, including the housing rental law — which leaves freedom to the owners to impose the conditions they want on the tenants—, supply, industrial promotion and commercial promotion.

The decree has freed the prices of food, medicines and private health insurance, which have registered large increases in the last three months.

In addition, it includes the adoption of an open skies policy to encourage competition between airlines and a section on labor reforms stopped by Justice.

Tension with Villarruel

The Government denied this Thursday that there are differences between Milei and her vice president.

However, Villarruel has been the target of numerous criticisms from the ruling ranks for considering that he did not do enough to prevent the session.

“I don't know why he did it.

You should ask her what she thinks.

But what I do know is that Alberto Fernández had hundreds of untreated decrees.

And we are going to deal with this DNU that allows us to normalize the rental market, give people freedom to choose their social work, which declares a block of companies a criminal offense?

I don't understand,” questioned the official legislator José Luis Espert.

All of Argentina's leaders have signed decrees of necessity and urgency during their administration and none of them have been invalidated by the Legislative Branch.

That is the line of attack chosen by the Government to attack the legislators, whom it accuses of putting spokes in the wheel of change.

“New historical record: decadence and the past for the first time in history rejected a DNU in the Senate of the Nation just three months after the new government took office,” wrote the presidential spokesperson on his social networks.

Protest outside Congress

The differences between the Senate and Milei were also replicated abroad.

Hundreds of people gathered this Thursday to defend Argentine cinema.

Attendees demanded the continuity of the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (Incaa) after the Ministry of Culture announced a “drastic reduction” in the entity's financing.

This week, the Government reported the cancellation of contracts, the suspension of overtime payment and the cancellation of trips, among other measures, in the Official Gazette.

“Incaa is not for sale, Incaa is defending itself,” the protesters shouted.

Around them, a strong police operation prevented the protest from blocking the streets.

The Incaa workers had called a press conference in front of the Gaumont cinema, an emblem of Argentine cinema a few meters from Congress, which was supported by different industry personalities.

There they expressed their rejection of "the layoffs and the attack on Incaa", defended the continuity of federal festivals, the existence of national film screening spaces, such as the Gaumont, which are dispersed throughout the country, and demanded that the film schools remain “open.”

“Cinema belongs to artists, not to businessmen” or “Cinema is history and memory,” are some of the slogans raised by the protesters.

As the hours passed, the tension of the protest increased and the police repressed those who defied the ban on blocking the street with tear gas.

At least three people were arrested and three officers injured, according to the Buenos Aires City Police.

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