“The President of the Argentine Republic, Mr. Javier Gerardo Milei, will be in Spain between May 17 and 19, on a private visit.” With those exact words, the Madrid Embassy informed the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs by letter on April 30 of the trip that Milei was going to make “accompanied by the Secretary General of the Presidency,” his sister Karina Milei.
The letter, to which EL PAÍS has had access, reported that Milei would travel on the official plane and anticipated that more details about the precise schedules and the support delegation would be provided as soon as possible.
The document sent by the Embassy confirmed through diplomatic channels the trip that Milei had announced a month before through social networks: his friend Santiago Abascal, leader of the ultra Vox party, invited him to participate in the launch of the election campaign. Europeans that weekend in May.
As the announced date approached, the Government came under public scrutiny for the expenses of Milei’s trips abroad, mostly characterized by an agenda less linked to national interests than to its own. Opposition leaders questioned that, while within Argentina he proclaims that “there is no money” and implements a drastic cut in public spending, the president and his entourage use the presidential plane and spend from state coffers to publicize the figure of the far-right leader.
The Government rejected these criticisms and defended that the expenses of the trip to Madrid were borne by the State because it was an official visit, despite the absence of bilateral meetings with Spanish authorities. “The reason for the trip is that he is going to have a meeting with the main Spanish businessmen, of whom most, if not all, have investments or interests in Argentina,” argued the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, hours before Milei took off from Ezeiza aboard the presidential plane. When asked about a visit that official Spanish sources considered private, Adorni insisted on its official nature and accused journalists of undervaluing the business meeting: “Beyond the fact that you are obviously not giving it the value it has, when “If we give you the details of the meeting, it will be understood that it is of utmost importance,” he insisted.
Since taking office as president last December, Milei has made seven international trips. So far the expenses of the initial three are known, which amount to about $168,000. The cost of the latter will be much higher, because in mid-April Milei stopped flying on commercial flights and began using the presidential plane for security reasons.
Left Front deputy Gabriel Solano has denounced Milei to court “for using public funds and property, including the presidential plane, to travel to Spain in order to participate in Vox party activities. The cost to the State will exceed $500,000.”
In January, Milei went to Switzerland to participate in the Davos Forum. In February she traveled to Israel, Italy and the Vatican, where she did maintain a state agenda. At the end of the same month, Milei made her first visit to the United States: she met with another icon of the global right, former President Donald Trump, and later spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He traveled to the United States again in April to be honored as an “international ambassador of light” by the Jewish organization Chabad Lubavitch and, later, to meet with the owner of Tesla, Elon Musk. At the beginning of May he returned to the United States for the third time. That time he spoke to businessmen and investors at the Milken Institute Forum and repeated his meeting with Musk.
Criticism for the waste of public funds hits a sensitive nerve for the Government of La Libertad Avanza. Milei came to power with a campaign against the privileges of the “political caste” and is now accused of engaging in the same behaviors that he previously reviled. “We are not Kirchnerists,” Adorni defended himself. “We do not make any self-criticism in terms of expenses because I can assure you that, if there is an austere government that spends the minimum and essential, it is this one,” he insisted last week.
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