The possibility that the Senate could introduce a minimal modification to the Base Law and the fiscal package would cause the founding reform of mileism to return to Deputies for review and delay its sanction, to the point of not being ready for promulgation on May 25, date on which President Javier Milei set for the signing of the May Pact.
But, with or without law, the Pact will be signed anyway. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the event in Córdoba will not have the profile of a national agreement, but rather of a sector, that of those who adhere to libertarian policies.
Not all governors will be invited. Rogelio Frigerio yes. There’s no doubt about it. In the eyes of the Casa Rosada, the governor of Entre Ríos is part of the platoon of leaders who “see it”, who agree with the need for a change in tune with the “ideas of freedom” and against “the caste ” and his “privileges,” according to the creed imposed by the president who perceives himself as chosen by the “forces of heaven.”
The Entre Ríos governor has done ample merit for that. From the first moment and despite not agreeing with many of the reforms proposed in the project originally drafted by Federico Sturzenegger, he put forward his general coincidences with the direction of the Base Law.
Frigerio’s support was not limited to his repeated public statements in defense of the project, which from the beginning was also proposed as a condition for the fiscal agreement that would allow a return to normality in the financing of the provinces, brutally cut by Milei. The governor also has to show that he put everything he had to put into Congress.
six votes
Indeed, Frigerio will arrive at the May Pact with the merit of having secured the positive vote of the six legislators who were elected in the National Congress on the lists of Together for Entre Ríos: two senators and four deputies.
The thing is that Frigerio does not lead everyone politically. Of the six, he has only one that he can consider as his own: PRO deputy Francisco Morchio.
Although among the remaining five, there are three that you don’t need to drive to. It is assumed that senators Alfredo de Ángeli (PRO) and Stella Olalla (UCR) will vote in the Upper House on the projects that come with half the approval of Deputies. It is pure logic: if they voted in favor of a decree (DNU 70) labeled as unconstitutional by a sector of the UCR and therefore rejected in the Senate, they will have no problems accompanying a law that goes in the same direction.
De Ángeli does not need Frigerio to drive him. She is part of the most liberal wing of the PRO, associated with Milei, which leaves Frigerio on the left within that party.
Olalla will always vote in harmony with the leader of his internal line in the province, deputy Atilio Benedetti, who has been the radical legislator who showed the greatest agreement with the reforms proposed by Milei. Benedetti and Olalla played with Patricia Bullrich in the JxC intern.
But Frigerio managed to align the two deputies who had been marking differences: Pedro Galimberti and Marcela Ántola. Both accompanied the vote in general and moved away from the positions that their references in the national internal of the UCR marked in many points of the vote in particular, more difficult for the radical tradition to digest.
Limit situation
The passage of time without a solution to the unprecedented financial suffocation to which Milei subjected the provinces in order to reduce the fiscal deficit, tested the faith of the leadership of Together for Entre Ríos in the dialogue strategy that Frigerio never abandoned. in its purpose of agreeing with the Nation.
After surviving short-term debt to pay salaries and bonuses, plus the devaluation that doubled the dollar debt inherited from Gustavo Bordet, inflation came that liquefied salaries and ignited the parity demand. Frigerio’s political doll, with the fundamental help of Minister Manuel Troncoso, made the relationship with the state unions reach a tone of coexistence unthinkable for a context like the current one.
The urgency of these months was to meet the salaries of the almost 89 thousand active workers and the 60 thousand passive ones, who account for more than 90% of the provincial state’s expenditures.
Meanwhile, the definancing of the Nation to the provinces continues to make history and extends over time. In Entre Ríos, 75% of the resources depend on co-participation, which in these months collapsed due to the recession. Added to this was the almost total cut to discretionary funds and public works.
The fall in activity also collapsed Gross Income, the majority of provincial taxes, which explain 25% of the income of the Entre Ríos state.
In this context, the restitution of the income tax, which is shared with the provinces, is key to getting provincial public accounts out of the emergency. Although unfriendly to a small portion of employees – which in Entre Ríos is much lower than that of provinces with higher salaries, such as those in Patagonia – the decision to tax high incomes is coherent for Frigerio and the legislators of Together for Entre Ríos, who They did not support Sergio Massa’s electoral decision last year and, however, the then deputies Milei and Victoria Villarruel voted.
In Frigerio’s strategy, the May Pact is the turning point for the recovery of the federal country that Milei destroyed in December with the purpose of adjusting expenses. It is not the Pact itself, but the idea that it is reached with the Base Law and its reward for the provinces, the fiscal agreement.
Frigerio is assured of the vote of the two Entre Ríos senators for the majority in a chamber where approval is much tighter than in the Deputies. In theory, those two votes in the Senate are worth more than the four votes in the Deputies. But Frigerio already had them or, rather, Milei already had them: he did not have to persuade De Ángeli and Olalla.
In politics, those who change their position are paid. It is likely that some provinces governed by Peronists will end up charging much more than Entre Ríos.
Fountain: Policy Page
