Legislative marathon in Argentina: Javier Milei's mega deregulatory law reaches Congress

After intense weeks of negotiations and obtaining the majority opinion with dissidents, the Law of Bases megaproject, better known as the Omnibus Law, that the Argentine president Javier Milei presented as soon as his administration began has begun to be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies. The project initially contained 664 articles that modified or repealed the regulations that constitute the Argentine bureaucratic entanglement.

To obtain approval, the ruling party performed an expressive dance in which it was inflexible in its statements while negotiating the facts, until reaching a new version of the project in which hundreds of articles were eliminated or modified, and more modifications are still expected. Almost two hundred polemic articles will be dealt with in the parliamentary debate, and if the necessary majority is obtained, the project will go to the Senate, where a new battle will occur.

The forced and hysterical professional protest machine managed by the unions and the left made its usual appearance, trying to tip the balance of safety in the streets. Although they have only achieved a few minor scandals and images destined to be successful memes so far, the leadership maintains that they will continue on the streets to prevent the law from being approved. Although the mobilizations were called early, the incidents were recorded late in the afternoon, with more intense outbreaks when members of the Gendarmerie, Prefecture, and Federal Police clashed with protesters on Entre Ríos Avenue in front of the National Congress to clear the streets of the protestors who occupied them. The advance of the security forces occurred in stages in the late afternoon. After the clashes, it was confirmed that a 30-year-old man of Chilean nationality was charged with the crimes of “attack and resistance to authority and injuries” against two agents of the Argentine Naval Prefecture.

Meanwhile, inside Congress, the friendlier opposition made statements of support throughout the day; the Civic Coalition maintained that it would support the majority opinion, the We Make Federal Coalition bloc commented that it would vote on the law proposed by the ruling party, maintaining that “we come to give an instrument to the country because the government needs it, but above all to a society that has been suffering for a long time.”

The UCR confirmed that it will support the Omnibus Law. Rodrigo de Loredo maintained in this regard that “the reality is that this exceeds the reforms of Menem, Duhalde, De la Rúa, Néstor Kirchner and Macri,” and charged against Kirchnerism for having a destructive and hypocritical attitude and added: “Let the Argentine people know that this government has the tools to carry out the management plan that the people have voted for."

In the middle of yesterday afternoon, former president Mauricio Macri spoke out online in support of the Law of Bases, saying: “Today is a very important day because a fundamental law is going to be voted on to begin a change in Argentina. That is why I support the law presented by the government. At the same time, today we will be able to see two groups in action: those who insist on maintaining their privileges by seeking to hinder the government and those determined to move towards change.”

This Wednesday, the government detailed what remained of the already greatly diminished original omnibus law. The decision made in Congress was that these modifications be announced before the debate began. The supporters of Kirchnerism wanted to take advantage of the suppression of articles to bring down the session; the head of the block, Germán Martínez, denounced that the text of the project “is a nonsense never seen before; it looked like bingo,” referring to the number of articles that entered and exited. “If you want to take care of the president of the nation, make the issue go back to commission,” he requested, and this was put to the vote but was rejected with 149 votes against and 103 who voted in favor—a good sign for President Milei.

The parliamentary secretary, Tomás Figueroa, read the entire deletion of the articles. To the reduction of the fiscal package that the Minister of Economy Luis Caputo had announced, articles were added on about the methodology of taking on external debt to the laughable provision that a meeting of more than three people had to be notified to the Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich, among other questioned points of Milei's project. The chapter that modifies the fishing regime at the request of the Patagonian governors was also left out. Of the eleven delegated powers Javier Milei requested, only the economic, financial, security, tariff, energy and administrative powers remained.

It is expected that the ruling party will achieve approval of the project in general. That could happen after more than 40 hours of debate that it is estimated the entire session could last. Despite this support, the government could suffer several blows in the discussion of the articles, for example, in the articles referring to the privatizations of public companies or the delegated powers that the Executive Branch intends to grant itself. Although the ruling party agreed to reduce them, several deputies, in addition to the supporters of Kirchnerism and the left, insisted on their refusal to grant special powers to the Executive Branch.

After 9:30 p.m. local time, the deputies adjourned the session, which they will resume on Thursday at noon. Most legislators supported the decision, although the Peronists complained and said they wanted to continue. With this delay, the ruling party has not yet managed to get the Law of Bases project voted on because of the long list of speakers signed up to give their opinion in the chamber: there are still 140 left who will do so on Thursday starting at noon. This Wednesday alone, they were in session for eleven hours. The general vote is expected to be after 20 hours of debate, but the most controversial moments will come later with the particular vote where the fine print will be defined.

Meanwhile, Milei spent the day at the Olivos presidential residence, where those close to him maintain that there is an air of calm and good spirits. Official sources reported that while the debate was heating up in Congress, the president received good news, such as that the IMF will disburse the $4.7 billion it had previously agreed upon and that a group of tech entrepreneurs would arrive in Argentina to evaluate possible investments.