The Argentine president, Javier Milei, likes to represent himself as a lion. The Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, laid out the red carpet in the Spanish capital this Friday and the lion has begun to roar. But his roars have not been directed only against the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, an enemy they both share. Under the watchful eye of his host and in the institutional headquarters of the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, Milei has launched a speech that is directly contrary to the principles of the social and democratic State of Law enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. He has proclaimed that social justice is “a horrible, impoverishing monster.” […] “a truly aberrant, deeply unjust and violent idea.” And he added that taxes are theft “because they are not paid voluntarily, they are paid at gunpoint.”
Milei has launched his first torpedo against Sánchez, whom he has accused of being corrupt without mentioning it, by ensuring that “there are always leaks” in the taxes collected from citizens in the name of social justice, since public funds are lost “in the porous hands of politicians, perhaps not in those of the politician directly, perhaps in those of the partner or brother, whoever wants to understand understands,” he added, in a barely veiled reference to the judicial accusation of the wife of the President of the Government, Begoña Gómez, and her brother. In case this allusion had not been explicit enough, Milei has expressly mentioned it when he assured that “if socialists studied economics they would not be socialists”, to add: “One of the exceptions is Pedro Sánchez. “Either he did not understand or he really likes the State to take over the Spaniards.”
Alvaro Garcia
The Argentine president has presented himself as someone “who comes from the future”, as Ayuso herself has presented, to warn of the supposed havoc caused by a socialism that, in his words, is based “on hatred, envy and resentment” and that he has no qualms about resorting to murder. Milei has put communism, Stalinism and social democracy in the same bag, attributing to the latter the historical crimes of the first two, and has called on Spaniards to oppose this ideology “so that socialism does not ruin their lives.” .
Díaz Ayuso has praised “the firmness and courage” of Milei, who in his first six months in office has implemented a drastic cut in social aid and frozen public investments, measures that he himself has described as “the biggest adjustment of the history of humanity” and to their host “they sound like fresh air.” Although he has admitted political differences between the two, the Madrid president has made an effort to minimize them. “On this path, each one makes their own decisions, they will not always be the same, it is not necessary. We believe in nuances, I understand that many will not see it that way, but there will be many parallels,” she said. However, Milei has made it clear that his ally is not the European People’s Party, in which Ayuso is a member, but the extreme right, with which he shared a rally on May 19 in Madrid and with which he has celebrated its progress in the elections. recent European elections, presenting it as a symptom that Europe “seems to be waking up.”
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The Royal Post Office has dressed in its best clothes to receive a leader with whom the Government has maintained a diplomatic fight since, on his previous visit to Spain, a month ago, he insulted the President of the Government and his wife. Milei arrived at seven o’clock in the afternoon at Puerta del Sol, where several hundred people cheered him with shouts of “Milei, friend, Spain is with you” and “freedom!”
Ayuso received her guest at street level, dressed in a long light blue dress—the color, along with white, of the Argentine flag—and flanked by her entire Government Council. Both held a meeting that was scheduled for 15 minutes and lasted almost three quarters of an hour and was also attended by the president’s sister, Karina Milei, the Madrid advisor to the Presidency, Miguel Ángel García, and the chief of staff of Ayuso, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, in an image that evoked summits between international leaders.
![The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (3d), receives the president of Argentina, Javier Milei (2i).](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/6XPM2IAB7Y2DVKPDGQLBSU46EM.jpg?auth=6c7c7d502848a15392e383cd47ec6a0bcb56bd1d691a2288721d8408643d5ab2&width=414)
EFE/CAM
After the meeting, both went out to the balcony, from which they repeatedly greeted the crowd, in a scene that lasted several minutes, to Milei’s complacency at receiving a crowd bath in the capital of Madrid. Next, they went down to the central patio of the building, where representatives of some 70 Spanish and international media awaited them, and the Argentine president signed the book of honor, before the Madrid president awarded him the international medal of the Community of Madrid.
In the morning, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, had denied the president of the Community of Madrid, who described Milei’s visit as “official.” “Without a doubt this is a private visit. There is nothing on the official agenda from what I have known so far about that visit,” said the head of Spanish diplomacy. By expressing himself in this way, Albares was denying the official nature of the Argentine president’s visit, a legally mandatory condition to be able to grant him the decoration that Ayuso has given him.
Shouts of support for the Argentine president and against the press
After the event, Milei went to the so-called Liberty Dinner at the Madrid Casino, organized by the Juan de Mairena Institute, who has awarded him its annual award “for his defense of the ideas of freedom.” This institute is an ultraliberal think tank whose executive director is Manuel Llamas Fraga, who between 2019 and 2023 was part of Díaz Ayuso’s Executive, first as Chief of Staff of Minister Javier Fernández-Lasquetty and then as Deputy Minister of Economy.
Precisely, Fernández-Lasquetty himself was one of those attending the dinner, which was also attended by the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, the ultra MEP Hermann Tertsch, the PP deputy Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo and the Nobel Prize winner of Literature Mario Vargas Llosa.
About 200 meters away, more than a hundred people have gathered on the corner of Sol and Alcalá Street to show their rejection of the visit and the decoration of the Argentine president. The protesters have displayed banners with messages such as “Milei is hunger”, “Ayuso, not in my name” or “the Community of hate”; in addition to shouting like “Milei, trash, you are the dictatorship” or “Ayuso and Milei, it’s the same shit.”
The atmosphere contrasted with that experienced at the doors of the Casino, where the anticipation for Milei’s arrival at dinner was not far behind either. More than a hundred people have gathered to support Milei. Dressed in Spanish flags, those present shouted against the press, calling it “manipulative.”
The arrival of the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has been received with applause and shouts of “Viva España”, although the warmest moment has been experienced when the Argentine president arrived at the event around 9:55 p.m. Those present, who had been waiting for his arrival for more than an hour, chanted his name and shouted “long live freedom, damn it” while Milei approached to greet them. The rest of those present were tourists who were perplexed when they saw the police deployment and the number of official cars parked at the doors of the Madrid Casino.
Fifty people have gathered to show their support for the Argentine president and the Madrid president, with shouts like “Milei, friend, Spain is with you,” reports Diego Sanchez. Dressed in Spanish flags, those present shouted against the press, calling it “manipulative.” On the contrary, another 200 people have demonstrated against Milei, whom they have accused of violating human rights.
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