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Argentina's new libertarian President Javier Milei unveiled a sweeping emergency decree on Wednesday evening that mandates more than 300 measures to deregulate the country's rigid economy.
The decree repeals key regulations affecting Argentina's residential rental market, export customs regulations, land ownership, food retailers and more. Rules for the aviation, healthcare, pharmaceutical and tourism industries will also be changed to promote competition.
Further measures will ease Argentina's strict labor laws and change the legal status of the country's state-owned companies, which include an airline, media companies and energy giant YPF, to allow their privatization.
“Today we take our first step to end Argentina’s model of decline,” Milei said in a recorded broadcast. “I have signed an emergency decree to begin dismantling the repressive institutional and legal framework that has destroyed our country.”
The decree marks the culmination of Milei's campaign promise of a sharp break from the extensive regulations, high taxes and sprawling public sector that the left-leaning Peronist movement has instituted over the past two decades. However, its implementation could put the libertarians on the path to clashes with the Peronists and their allies in Argentina's powerful unions.
After the broadcast, some Buenos Aires residents banged pots and pans on their balconies in protest, while others shouted “Long live freedom, damn it!”, a slogan coined by Milei during his presidential campaign earlier this year.
Earlier in the day, the first major protest against Milei's presidency took place in downtown Buenos Aires, with left-wing campaign groups gathering thousands of protesters and demanding “an end to Milei's presidency.” . . Chainsaw Savings Plan”.
Milei's Economy Minister Luis Caputo last week announced cuts in energy subsidies, layoffs of recently hired public sector workers and a real cut in the budget of a major social program, as well as increases in food aid and child benefits.
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Peronist politicians accused the president of issuing the new mandates by decree to avoid voting on them in Congress, where his La Libertad Avanza coalition holds only 15 percent of the seats in the lower house and less than 10 percent in the Senate.
According to Argentina's constitution, presidents can issue “emergency and necessity decrees” in most policy areas – with the exception of tax, criminal and electoral matters, as well as rules for political parties – when “extraordinary circumstances make compliance with ordinary procedures impossible.” Decrees remain in effect until both houses of Congress vote to repeal them.
“There is neither need nor urgency,” Germán Martínez, leader of the Peronist Union por la Patria bloc in the lower house, which holds 40 percent of the seats, said on X on Wednesday afternoon, arguing that Milei should call parliamentary sessions to debate his measures as bills. “Don’t be afraid of a democratic debate,” Martínez added.