Ezequiel Rudman 
As the commissions that will evaluate the government’s “omnibus bill” in Congress remain unappointed, La Libertad Avanza’s (LLA) top legislators have already warned Casa Rosada that they will need to extend extraordinary sessions that were originally scheduled to end on January 31. The project must be submitted to at least four commissions: Constitutional Affairs, Budget and Finance, General Legislation, and Foreign Affairs. Yet none of the committees in charge of ruling on the 351-page bill have been formed yet.
Once the commissions are formed — Budget and Treasury will be chaired by José Luis Espert— the project will be submitted, and a schedule for Milei’s cabinet ministers to defend the project in Congress will be devised. No activity is expected this week as national legislators return to their provinces for New Year’s Eve. Hence, the four weeks of January will not be enough time to vote on the project in the Lower House and in the Senate afterwards. Even sources from LLA have admitted that the text will be negotiated with the opposition in order to accept changes.
Congressman Oscar Zago (LLA) said that the ruling party’s legislators were “surprised” by the scope of the bill — called “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines” — sent by President Javier Milei to Congress. He also rejected the notion that the bill aims to grant “the sum of public power” to the president.
“The scope of the package that was sent to Congress surprised us. We were not aware of the content of the project, so we are in the same situation as opposition legislators. I do not believe that it aims to grant the majority of public power to the president. It’s not like that,” said Zago.
Last Wednesday, the government sent Congress a massive 664-article bill aimed at reforming the state that establishes the privatization of 41 public companies, as well as changes in the electoral system, tax reforms, a new mechanism to update social security payments and pensions, and restrictions on protest demonstrations.
In order to enforce these provisions, Milei asked Congress to declare a public emergency in economic, financial, fiscal, social security, crime, defense, tariffs, energy, healthcare, administration, and social matters until December 31, 2025.
“We are trying to make sure most of the project is debated in January, as the president requested. We had prepared the work for four commissions: Budget and Finance, Foreign Affairs, Constitutional Affairs, and General Legislation. That was what we had planned, but now we are going to have to expand it to other commissions,” said the legislator.
Zago said that “work will begin on assembling the pending commissions” to deal with the project. He also acknowledged that the Bicameral Commission that will evaluate the government’s Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) that deregulates the economy “has not yet been formed.”
Former PRO national congressman and constitutional lawyer Pablo Tonelli warned about the time it will take for Congress to process the “omnibus bill,” saying that its approval could take “months or years.”
“The project is so broad that it will have to be submitted to at least 10 or 12 commissions, which means it will take months or years before it sees the light of day,” Tonelli said in statements made to CNN Radio.
“It would have been more practical to divide it,” he added.
The former national legislator for Buenos Aires City stated that, for example, “if the reform of the Civil Code had been grouped into a single project, which goes to a single commission, it would have been more agile.”
Still, Tonelli noted that these problems can be corrected “in a negotiation between Congress and the Executive Branch in order to split the project.”
Regarding the declaration of emergency included in the bill, he said that “all our presidents have resorted to the emergency and the delegation of powers. It’s not something to be celebrated, but if there was ever a circumstance in which the country was in an emergency, it seems to be now.”
Regarding political reform, one of the top issues of the bill, Tonelli was in favor of “begining with the issue of the single voting ballot, which is the reform that we need the most right now.”
The head of the Unión por la Patria (UxP) bloc in the Lower House, Germán Martínez, also denied that there is “a majority’s will” in Congress to grant extraordinary powers to President Javier Milei. He also said that the bloc he leads will coordinate “all mechanisms available to stop “both the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) and the ‘omnibus bill’” submitted by the government.
“I don’t see a majority in the Lower House willing to grant Milei extraordinary powers, which, on the other hand, are clearly forbidden by the Constitution. A lot of politicians have already said this, but now we have to turn those public statements into consensual parliamentary strategies,” said Martínez.
According to the congressman, the decree and the bill “are very dangerous,” and the Lower House cannot endorse them. In that chamber, 129 votes are necessary to secure the rejection of these initiatives.
“It is true that there are not enough legislators in the UP bloc. We have 102 deputies. In order to reject a project, we must have 129. Therefore, at this point, we need to establish a fluid dialogue with other political forces,” Martínez pointed out.
The congressman for Santa Fe recalled that the proposed laws are “pushing political polarization in a way we have ever seen before in Argentina,” which is why he considered it “necessary” to achieve “a parliamentary majority with legislators from all political spaces.”
“We must take into account the absolutely unprecedented situation Milei is putting Congress in. In this context, agreeing on procedures is no small thing. The DNU cannot pass because it invades the powers of Congress. That must be the basis for an agreement that is crucial. We need to try and reach a basic consensus,” he stated.
For the head of the Peronist caucus, what is currently happening in Argentina “is highly negative for the 47 million Argentines.”
“We must establish a horizontal and collective space that actively sets boundaries to certain ways of doing things.”
“In order to do that, we must be willing to renounce any leading role in the construction of the transversal legislative majority we need. The least important thing at this stage are the names and designations of our political spaces, because there are other things at stake. The seriousness of the situation and how far this proposal is from what Argentina really needs warrant that political forces play a major role in crafting a collective result.”
