Argentina’s President Javier Milei Sends Omnibus Bill to Congress, Seeking Legislative Powers
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has sent a massive new bill to Congress to adopt a scheme of regulations to advance his goal of modernizing the Argentine state. If approved, the bill would allow Milei to legislate by executive order on certain emergency areas and privatize state companies, among other aspects.
Javier Milei Proposes Omnibus Bill to Obtain Legislative Faculties
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has continued pressing on in his transformative goals for the country. The so-called libertarian has sent a massive omnibus bill to Congress, which touches on or modifies 20 laws. The bill, titled “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines,” seeks to continue with the ostensibly libertarian reform of the Argentine state, touching on subjects like personal taxes, import laws, justice administration, education, and others.
Also, the bill calls for declaring a national emergency in several fields, including finance, economy, financial, fiscal, pensions, security, defense, tariffs, energy, health, administrative, and social, until December 2025, with the possibility of extending it for two more years. Approving it would allow Milei to legislate via executive orders during his whole mandate, sidestepping the Congress in which his party has a minority.
Experts agree that this part of the bill is difficult to approve, given that Congress would delegate its functions to the executive power. In its more than 600 articles, the bill also determines that state companies will be declared “susceptible to privatization,” preparing the 41 companies that Argentina owns to be sold.
The document further introduces a new asset regulation proposal that allows Argentines to declare ownership of several assets, including “cryptocurrencies, crypto assets, and other similar goods, regardless of who has been their issuer, who is their owner or where they were deposited, guarded or stored,” paying up to 15% on the calculated excess of the first $100,000 regularized. This means the first $100,000 in regularized assets would not be subject to paying anything under the proposal.
The bill will be discussed in special congressional sessions, and each point will be treated individually. Some points can be approved, while others can be repealed. Nonetheless, the CGT, the largest workers’ group in the country, has already called for a general strike on January 24 to reject Milei’s bill.
Last week, Milei also issued a massive emergency executive order, which is facing several legal actions in national courts.
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