Since the inauguration of Javier Milei, the culture sector continues to be on alert. The approval by the Deputies of the Base Law installs the danger of intervening, dismantling and closing organizationswarn references from the field to Page 12. Unlike the Omnibus Law, the text approved by the Lower House did not include a chapter dedicated especially to culture, but the delegated powers still entail a strong threat for organizations such as the INT, the INCAA, the INAMU and the National Fund for the Arts.
“Although there were no specific culture articles, as in the Omnibus Law, the attack is contained in the ‘delegated powers’, since they contain the possibility of closing organizations, dismantling them, etc.,” he says. Javier Gabinoof the collective United for Culture. The delegated powers are included in the chapter 1 of the Base Law. And the articles that compromise the sector are the 3, 4 and 6according to a statement published on Monday by the Argentine Federation of Independent Musicians and Musicians (FAMI). “Milei can return through this to his ‘original plan’ of closing the National Theater Institute or the National Endowment for the Arts. As they are doing now, ‘in fact’, with the INCAA, which the Government wants to use as a ‘witness case’ of how to ‘defeat culture,'” adds Gabino. Unidxs called for Congress to mobilize against the Bases law on Monday and is inviting a hug from INCAA for this Friday.
He article 3 Chapter 1 of the Base Law gives the Executive Branch the power to modify, eliminate powers, functions or responsibilities legally provided “whose maintenance is unnecessary” in relation to bodies or agencies of the central or decentralized administration that have been created by law. Also, the President will have powers to “reorganization, modification or transformation of its legal structure, centralization, merger, division, total or partial dissolution, or transfer to the provinces or the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires“. Then the text mentions organisms “excluded” from these powers and from “dissolution.” Within the latter appears the INCAAthe only one from the cultural sector that entered the list, currently sunk in paralysis.
In the run-up to the vote, different entities made public what was at risk. The FAMI, for example, in its statement, warned of the “power” that the President would have to “intervene on the different bodies for the promotion of culture” (this is in article 6 of chapter 1). “All the work carried out in favor of promoting our culture for several generations cannot be left to the discretion of a single person,” said the federation. “Attention deputies, the National Theater Institute is once again in danger,” warned the Argentine Association of Independent Theater (ARTEI), which brings together more than a hundred hall representatives. The statement noted that the first articles of the Base Law granted the Executive Branch “the power to override 26 years of history and a law built with broad legislative consensus and the theater community.” Argentores and the Argentine Association of Actors and Actresses, among other organizations, joined the message.
“The Government learned from the January experience. What was circulated now is a draft, so we could not be certain of what exactly it was about, as we could before. We knew from deputies that the culture chapter was not there but that continued to maintain and expand the issue of the delegation of powers. Everything they took from the culture chapter they can do now if the law is passed, including dissolving organizations“, agrees with Gabino Gonzalo Perezpresident of ARTEI.
The theater artists held dialogues with legislators to be able to include the INT within the organizations excluded from the dark intentions of the norm, but they did not succeed. There is a “momentary calm” with the official appointment of the executive director, Mariano Stolkiner, who set the organization in motion. With the Omnibus Law, the Government’s first intention was, directly, to close the institute; Later he tried to reduce it to a program within the Ministry of Culture. Given this background, it is inevitable that the community feels fear about what could happen if the Senate approves the delegated powers. The next step is, then, “to go to the Senate and seek vote by vote” to avoid the catastrophe.
