Argentina's President Milei introduces far-reaching deregulation
The decree provides for 300 existing laws to be amended or abolished. It was published in the Argentine Official Gazette at midnight and is therefore legally binding. However, the project must now be submitted to a committee made up of members of both Argentinian chambers of Congress within ten days.
Milei's radical right-wing party La Libertad Avanza is in the minority in both chambers, with only 40 out of 257 deputies and seven out of 72 senators. However, both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate would have to reject the decree in order to block the reforms, constitutional lawyer Emiliano Vitaliani told the AFP news agency.
Milei himself said of the deregulation package in his televised address that the aim was to "embark on the road to rebuilding the country, to give freedom and autonomy back to the people and to start dismantling the huge number of laws that have held back, disrupted and prevented economic growth in our country", said Milei.
Among other things, a law regulating rents should be abolished. The real estate market must function "without problems" again so that the search for housing does not resemble an "odyssey", said Milei. The privatization of state-owned companies such as the oil company YPF and the airline Aerolíneas Argentinas should also be made possible.
The creation of "real jobs" is to be facilitated through a reform of labor law. Sectors such as health, tourism, the internet and trade are also to be deregulated.
Commenting on his reform plans, Milei went on to say that in the past hundred years, politicians have been busy "expanding the power of the state to the detriment of Argentinian citizens". Milei went on to say: "Our country, which was the leading world power in the 1920s, has been embroiled in a series of crises over the last hundred years, all of which have the same origin: the budget deficit."
Milei, who was elected in November, promised the highly indebted country "shock therapy" when he took office on December 10. The 53-year-old political novice has taken over Latin America's third-largest economy in the midst of a severe economic crisis: Inflation has risen to more than 160 percent and more than 40 percent of the population live in poverty.
The new government has already devalued the national currency, the peso, by more than 50 percent.
In Buenos Aires, the first major demonstrations against Milei since he took office began on Wednesday. In several neighborhoods, residents banged on cooking pots and thousands of demonstrators gathered in the streets near the Argentine Congress.
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Source: www.stern.de
