President Javier Milei suffered another setback midweek as Congress gave a pointed response midweek to three vetoes signed by the head of state.
Over last weekend, Milei struck down three laws in favour of the elderly and the disabled, sparking an angry reaction from lawmakers, who responded by passing a law to increase national university funding by a 158-75 vote.
Underlining the tensions with ugly scenes outside Congress, security forces repressed the weekly Wednesday pension protest outside with tear gas once again.
For good measure, national deputies also declared a state of emergency for paediatric health care in Argentina, accompanied by boosted financing for the strife-torn Garrahan Children’s Hospital, though they steered clear of rejecting the presidential veto against a similar declaration of emergency for last March’s Bahía Blanca floods since they were unsure of the requisite two-thirds majority.
The opposition presented a solid front to back the university bill presented by the Democracia para Siempre splinter of the Radicals headed by Facundo Manes, who were joined by Unión por la Patria (Kirchnerite), the leftist Frente de Izquierda, the Encuentro Federal caucus of inland deputies, Coalición Cívica founded by Elisa ‘Lilita’ Carrió, 11 UCR Radicals, some provincial deputies and even three from the PRO centre-right.
The 75 nays came from La Libertad Avanza, most of PRO and minor parties, while three more PRO deputies, maverick libertarian Ricardo López Murphy and an Encuento Federal member abstained.
Veto trio
Signed over the weekend, Milei’s vetoes of the three laws were published formally on Monday as Decree 534/2025 in the Official Gazette. Its 27 pages of justification centred on the argument that the laws undermined Milei’s attempts to balance Argentina’s budget.
It marked the second time since last August that Milei – the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” head of state – has blocked a pension increase.
The La Libertad Avanza also scrapped a moratorium temporarily providing pensions for people who had not contributed to the system for the required 30 years.
More than 40 percent of work in Argentina is in the informal sector, meaning many people are excluded from the state pension.
Milei took office in December, 2023, having wielded a live chainsaw during his successful election campaign to symbolise his project to dramatically cut state spending. He has suspended public works projects, laid off tens of thousands of civil servants, gutted state agencies and reduced aid.
The crisis-hit economy registered its first budget surplus in 14 years in 2024 and annual inflation fell to 39.4 percent in June – down from 211 percent at the end of 2023 and 118 percent last year.
But the measures were blamed for tipping millions more people into poverty in the first half of 2024 and brought tens of thousands onto the streets in protest.
Hardest-hit
Researchers say pensioners are the hardest-hit by Milei’s austerity measures. Retirees have been protesting weekly outside Congress for months, often met with repression by the security forces.
Benefits for those who qualify are enough to cover only a third of the basket of basic goods, around US$275 per month at the official exchange rate (from the US$80 he inherited, according to Milei) and more than 70 percent of retirees live below the poverty line. The vetoed bill would add a one-off 7.2 percent to all pensions while increasing the bonus on the minimum benefit to 110,000 pesos from 70,000 pesos.
Milei’s government has argued that the retirement and disability pension increases were “irresponsible” as they “jeopardise” efforts to achieve fiscal balance, adding seven trillion pesos to this year’s public spending and 17 trillion to next year’s according to government calculations.
The vetoed bill for the disabled grants new pensions not backed by social security contributions. The government also alleged procedural irregularities in the Senate passage of the bills.
Argentina’s Congress, where Milei does not have a majority, can technically override presidential vetoes with the votes of two-thirds of the lawmakers present.
Breaks for some
Milei’s latest vetoes come a week after a presidential decree lowering grain and meat export duties.
The President has already vetoed a funding increase for universities, keeping their revenues tied to the 2023 budget.
He also vetoed a law declaring an emergency in the care of people with disabilities in order to regularise the payments of health benefit arrears and guarantee them until December, 2027.
According to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the Disability Emergency Law had a fiscal impact of between 0.22 percent and 0.42 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
Speaking the same time night as the veto decree to the libertarian Fundación Faro at the Yacht Club in Puerto Madero, Milei last weekend claimed: “The social support makes our reforms sustainable in time” while adding that if people could not make it to the end of the month, as often stated, “the streets would be littered with corpses.”
Milei also announced that he would desist from insults in future (widely disbelieved even within his own entourage) and said that next month’s elections in Buenos Aires Province would mark the floor of the libertarian vote and the ceiling of the Kirchnerite.
– TIMES/NA/AFP
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