“Everything that can be privatized, will be privatized,” has been the warning from the far-right government of Javier Milei, which has been in power for 11 months. There is a first case underway: IMPSA, a metallurgical company sold at the cheapest price to US capital, according to expert voices. The privatization wave threatens to include Aerolíneas Argentinas, despite the refusal of Congress, and eight state companies authorized for the entry of private capital that appear in the Base Law that the ruling party managed to approve.
The scrapping of the State has begun by IMPSA (Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anónima), one of the most important high-tech companies in Argentina, which manufactures turbines and generators for Latin America and had been rescued and nationalized in 2021 during the Government of Alberto Fernández (64% of the shares for the Nation, 21% for the province of Mendoza).
ARC Energy, a North American capital company dedicated to the production, provision and services of oil and gas inputs, was the only formal bidder and will retain the state shares of IMPSA in exchange for an investment of 25 million dollars.
Matías Kalos, economist and director of EPyCA Consultores, tells elDiario.es that the company is being sold at a sort of “worst moment”, since during 2024 it was paralyzed. “This year he did not develop any new projects, he did not go out to win new contracts. If they had done an interesting business management they would sell it more expensive. It’s like liquidating it.”
The EPyCA report also points out that “during Fernández’s management, the business potential” of the company founded as a metallurgical workshop in 1917 was ruined. Specifically, they maintain, the company was not included in contracts to modernize Argentine dams.
“It is privatized, closed or handed over to employees”
The narrative for the State to sell its assets has been concentrated these days on Aerolíneas Argentinas. “”It is privatized, it is closed or it is handed over to the employees, there is no alternative,” said presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni beyond the refusal of Congress – the airline was excluded from the Base Law. Furthermore, the debate in the Assembly on new projects has been bogged down due to lack of votes. So, the current strategy seems to be to deepen the conflict with the unions.
This is a discursive battle against the workers. According to Milei, the problem is “the privileges they have.” The workers, meanwhile, demand a salary improvement because they argue that there was a gap of 90% in salaries compared to the inflation that has accumulated since December (158% until September).
In the event that the Casa Rosada wants to advance in the Crisis Preventive Procedure, as they anticipate that they will, the scenario will not be simple and the Government will have to demonstrate to the Judiciary that there is actually a business crisis and not just a mere political intention. to liquidate the flag airline to the highest bidder.
Diego Dominelli, author of the book Perón and Aerolíneas Argentinas, the definitive return and director of the Aviation portal in Argentina, tells elDiario.es that the Government lacks a plan with the airline. “The Milei government does not have a plan with the company, the Base Law does not foresee its privatization and it does not say how it will replace it. Then he’s in trouble. At this moment, air transport is conditioned by the macroeconomy. Argentina is expensive in dollars. Serious economists point out that from December to now inflation in dollars is 90%. The Government deregulated everything so that any airline company could come to fly, but none came to base itself here in a political scenario with more questions than certainties,” he says.
Kalos agrees that with Aerolíneas Argentinas what prevails is the ideological issue, in the absence of a roadmap. “There is no intended sale condition and there is no impact assessment. It is an ideological question. “The Government does not discuss arguments, it only proposes that we must privatize.”
“If they shrink the company, or if they close it, the consequence is that the country is going to disconnect. The serious thing is that if before you had trains and planes, now we will not have trains or planes,” adds Dominelli.
Regarding trains, the Government has already given worrying signals. “Everything that can happen to the private sector to make it more efficient, that’s how it will be done,” said the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, when announcing the Executive’s decision to privatize the company Belgrano Cargas y Logística, which operates three transportation lines. rail loads.
These railway lines were handed over to private capital in 1999, at the end of the government of the conservative Peronist Carlos Menem (1989-1999), architect of the last great wave of privatization that Argentina experienced.
Belgrano Cargas, which returned to the State in 2008 due to problems with the concession, is one of the many companies that the far-right Government seeks to sell to private capital.
Shortly after assuming the Argentine presidency, Milei had included 41 state companies as “subject to privatization” within an economic deregulation bill, a list that was later reduced to eight companies as part of the negotiations with the opposition to remove forward the Base Law.
According to official data, 100,263 people work in the nearly 45 companies and societies of the State, about 10,000 fewer since the Milei Government began.
The most limited list included Energía Argentina (with assets in the electricity sector and transportation and gas marketing); Intercargo (airport services to airlines); Argentine Water and Sanitation (Aysa, drinking water and sewage services); Belgrano Cargas; Railway Operating Company (Sofse, passenger trains); and Road Corridors (toll roads and highways).
The new law also makes it possible for private capital to enter Nucleoeléctrica Argentina (NASA, operator of nuclear power plants) and Yacimientos Carboniferos Río Turbio (YCRT, operator of a coal mine in the south of the country), although in both cases the national State remains obliged to maintain a majority shareholding.
The Government has announced the deregulation of the postal service, in line with the idea of privatizing the Argentine Post Office, despite the fact that it is not included in the aforementioned Base Law. Federico Sturzenegger, Minister of Deregulation and Transformation of the State of the Argentine Nation, anticipated that the next step will be to get rid of the state postal company which, according to him, no longer has strategic value. “It will be privatized, concessioned or transferred to employees.” All this for the sake of freedom.
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