Milei extends extraordinary sessions in Congress to debate reforms

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, extended this Friday by decree the extraordinary sessions of Congress until February 15, adding three topics to the long list of reforms that he has already asked parliamentarians to debate.

The ordinary sessions of the Argentine Congress run from March 1st to November 30th of each year, but Milei, who assumed the presidency on December 10th, had called extraordinary sessions from December 26th, 2023 to January 31st, 2024 to deal with an 11-point agenda, including the Bill of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines, known as the “Omnibus Law”. This package is part of the libertarian reform program, which could not be included in the so-called Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU) – which came into force on December 29 – to deregulate the economy, reduce the public sector and achieve fiscal balance.

In the extraordinary sessions until February 15, Milei included three issues to be discussed: the authorization for the entry of foreign troops, the replacement of the chapter on “National Defense” in the “Security and Defense” section of the “Omnibus Law”, and the amendment of the Penal Code and Law 25,246 on the prevention and repression of money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

So far, in 2024, the “Omnibus Law” has already been debated by Congressional deputies in several committees during six sessions in the last two weeks. The Milei government now faces the final stretch of negotiations with several opposition blocs to get the country's Chamber of Deputies to debate the Executive's main bill next week. Despite initial intransigence, the government considered the possibility of introducing changes to some of the 664 articles of the “Omnibus Law”.

The government plans to work this weekend to ensure that the debate in the lower house of Congress takes place before next Wednesday, when the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the country's main trade union confederation, has called a half-day general strike and a large demonstration in front of the Legislative headquarters in Buenos Aires.