The “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines,” a key project of President Javier Milei’s administration, faced strong opposition and was sent back to committees by the Chamber of Deputies.
President Javier Milei’s administration faced a major blow this afternoon. They failed to get enough support for the key articles of the “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines,” and the session in the Chamber of Deputies was suspended and the project sent back to committees.
The first loss happened when they discussed the chapter on powers given to the Executive Branch. The dialogue blocs, backed by Kirchnerism, made the libertarians and their only PRO allies give up the chance of managing trust funds at their discretion and having wide powers in energy and security issues.
After that, the government party lost on almost all the points in the vital article 5 about the State Reform.
Because of this situation, La Libertad Avanza asked for a fourth break on their seats to try to change the course of the session. At the end of the fourth break, the leader of the libertarian bloc, Oscar Zago, requested that the whole bill be returned to committee, according to La Nación.
The chapter on State Reform is one of the main pillars of the proposal. But the dialogue blocs rejected many subsections. Among them, those that wanted to give the Executive Branch the authority to regulate and control the internal organization of the national public sector within a legal framework, and to “centralize, merge, change the legal type, reorganize, dissolve or eliminate totally or partially the bodies or entities.” that form the public sector.”
They also could not keep the power that the Government wanted to take for itself to eliminate duplicated powers; privatize state companies and businesses completely or partially; and interfere in entities and companies of the national public sector. With this, the State reform chapter of the “Bases Law” was almost destroyed.
The only win that the government party got was in the vote on article 1: with 134 for and 121 against, they approved the declaration of public emergency in six areas: economic, financial, security, tariffs, energy and administrative until December 31. December 2024.
Congress may extend this period for up to one year, with the option of extending it for another year.
