The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says that the Senate’s approval of President Javier Milei’s economic reform package in Argentina “was on a knife’s edge,” and writes:
“Burned cars, Molotov cocktails and flying stones in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires. Argentina is going through dramatic days. While President Javier Milei traveled to Italy with his sister and main advisor, Karina Milei, for the G-7 summit, His reform package was discussed by the Senate. This package is considered innovative for the Government’s economic policy, but, at the same time, it is very controversial.
Although Milei wrote in (…) Milei’s libertarian alliance has only 10 percent of the seats in the Senate and depends on the support of centrist parties. Even before the successful vote in the House of Representatives, the Government reduced the original legislative package, which included more than 600 changes to the law, to 238 articles, to make it suitable for a majority (…).
The vote is also a test of the Government’s ability to govern. Milei has not yet approved a single law in his six months in government. (…). He announced at the beginning of his term that he would veto any attempt to jeopardize his ‘zero deficit’ plan. But now everything seems to indicate that the opposition in the House of Representatives could muster a two-thirds majority to override Milei’s veto.
Discontent among sectors of the population also became evident on Wednesday (06/12/2024). For many Argentines, nerves have been tense for a long time. While the Senate was debating, violent clashes occurred between protesters and police in front of Congress (…).”
“Inside, verbal battles; outside, tear gas”
The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung highlights the role of the ‘Large Investment Incentive Regime’:
“In the Senate of the South American country, representatives discussed a controversial bill until late on Wednesday night. Meanwhile, outside the building, protesters violently clashed with the Police. (…) The future? Uncertain. (…).
The most discussed point of the project is the ‘Large Investment Incentive Regime’, or RIGI, an incentive system for large investments. (…) But critics say that the RIGI benefits large companies, while medium-sized companies are left out. And Argentina’s leftist former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, even warned of ’21st century colonialism’. Thanks to RIGI, foreign companies could exploit Argentina’s wealth in an ‘extractive economy without added value’ for the country’s people.”
“Strange enemies”
“Javier Milei is looking for strange enemies beyond the Argentine borders. It is also strange how he puts everyone who thinks differently in the same bag,” comments the German newspaper. Tageszeitung (taz):
“Georgia Meloni invited him to the G7 summit this week, after which he will travel to Germany. The first six months of his mandate as president of Argentina show that Javier Milei is incapable of carrying out a pragmatic foreign policy,” he introduces.
“Its guiding star is the United States. General Laura Richardson, who heads the Southern Command of the United States Armed Forces, has been warning for years about the expansion of ‘evil’ in Latin America: China. Although the economic presence of the superpower Asia is growing, the United States has clearly expanded its military supremacy.
During a visit by Richardson, Milei announced the construction of an Argentine-American naval base in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. Critics rightly see this as a threat to the country’s sovereignty. (…).
Milei flew to the United States five times. However, she avoided Latin America and even the neighboring Mercosur states, with one exception: in El Salvador she honored her like-minded colleague, Nayib Bukele. She did not meet with US President Joe Biden, but she did meet with powerful CEOs, most recently in Silicon Valley. She appeared twice with her most prominent supporter, Elon Musk, who makes no secret of her interest in Andean lithium deposits. (…).
Milei’s first and highly acclaimed appearance abroad took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Free trade capitalism is the only instrument to end poverty in the world, she said in a lecture in a professorial position. ‘Social justice is inherently unfair because it is based on tax collection,’ she noted there.
For him, ‘communists, fascists, Nazis, socialists, social democrats, national socialists, Christian democrats, Keynesians, neo-Keynesians, progressives, populists, nationalists or globalists’ are all ‘collectivists’. There are no substantive differences because, says Milei, everyone affirms that ‘the State must govern all aspects of life.’ Almost causally, he declared himself a climate denier and contemptuous of feminism. “He is trying to impose this agenda of a new extreme right along with a policy of strict economic dismantling in Argentina.”
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