Argentina’s ultraliberal President Javier Milei announced Wednesday that he would issue a decree massively deregulating Latin America’s third-largest economy, by modifying or repealing more than 300 standards, including those on rents, privatizations and labor laws.
“The objective is to begin the path towards rebuilding the country, returning freedom and autonomy to individuals and beginning to disarm the enormous amount of regulations that have held back, hindered and prevented economic growth in our country,” Mr. Milei said in a speech broadcast on radio and television.
Among the measures announced is the repeal of the law governing rents “so that the real estate market begins to function smoothly again and that renting is not an odyssey,” explained the president, elected in November and who took office on December 10.
Laws preventing the privatization of public companies will also be repealed. The latter will all be transformed into public limited companies with a view to their privatization, affirmed Javier Milei.
The Head of State also announced a “modernization of labor law to facilitate the process of authentic job creation”, the modification of the law on companies so that football clubs can transform into limited companies, and a long series of other deregulation measures in the sectors of tourism, health, Internet, air transport, pharmacy, viticulture and even commerce.
To enter into force, the decree must be published in the official journal, then be examined within ten days by a joint commission composed of deputies and senators. It will only be invalidated if it is rejected by both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, constitutional lawyer Emiliano Vitaliani explained to AFP.
Mr. Milei’s far-right party, La Libertad Avanza, has only 40 seats out of 257 in the Lower House and only seven seats in the Senate out of 72. However, the center-right coalition Juntos por el Cambio, partially allied with Mr. Milei, has 81 deputies and 24 senators. To which are added 26 deputies and eight independent senators. The Peronist opposition has 105 deputies and 33 senators, and the left has five deputies.
First demonstration
“This message is not surprising because there is nothing Milei hasn’t said he was going to do during the campaign. But it is surprising that the measure was taken in this way, with an emergency decree,” political scientist Lara Goyburu commented to AFP.
Javier Milei announced on December 12 a first series of austerity measures, including a shock devaluation of more than 50% of the peso and the reduction of transport and energy subsidies. Measures which, coupled with inflation and prices that are now unregulated, will have a serious impact on the purchasing power of Argentines.
Javier Milei, a 53-year-old economist, was elected on a program of “cutting” the State, clearing the “political caste” and shock therapy to straighten out the country where inflation exceeds 160% on one year and which has more than 40% of inhabitants below the poverty line.
The new Argentine president wants to reduce public spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP).
“Over the past hundred years, politicians have worked to expand state power at the expense of ordinary Argentines. Our country, which in the 1920s was the leading world power, has been involved in a series of crises over the last hundred years, all of which have the same origin: the budget deficit,” the president justified in his speech.
A few hours before the presidential address, thousands of people demonstrated in Buenos Aires against the government.
This first demonstration against Mr. Milei since he came to power took place at the call of the left-wing social organizations Polo Obrero and Movimiento Socialista. Protesters marched to Plaza de Mayo in the center of the Argentine capital, where the presidential palace is located.
“I came to the march to defend democratic freedoms, the freedom to demonstrate. There is a brutal adjustment, we have to organize ourselves and go out to resist,” Ezequiel Pretti, a 34-year-old employee, told AFP.
The enormous police force, personally supervised by the president and his Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, from the headquarters of the federal police, was criticized by the organizers. “It reminds me of the dictatorship,” commented Eduardo Belliboni, leader of Polo Obrero.