Buenos Aires, Aug 30 (EFE).- Argentine President Javier Milei signed a veto on Friday of a bill approved by Congress to reformulate the pension update system, a measure that had already been anticipated by the Executive and was the subject of strong criticism.
Although the veto is expected to be published in the Official Gazette next Monday, sources from the Casa Rosada (government headquarters) confirmed to EFE that the ultra-liberal president has already signed the resolution today.
The signing took place shortly after a meeting the president held with parliamentarians from the ruling party and the opposition in dialogue.
The vetoed bill, which had been approved by the Senate on August 22, established a formula for monthly pension updates that combined the inflation rate and the average variation in formal salaries, plus an extraordinary adjustment of 8.1%.
Milei’s veto comes after several warnings from members of the Executive, arguing that the planned increase would imply an expenditure of 1.2% of GDP and would force the State to contract debt.
“We must understand the background of all this, which is the attempt to break the fiscal balance and the seriousness of all this, when they propose spending without its counterpart in resources. There is no other reason to do this than to break the balance of public accounts,” explained the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, last Monday.
Although the Argentine Constitution allows the president to veto a law in whole or in part, Parliament can override this by putting the bill to a vote again and obtaining the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of both legislative chambers.
Pensions have been one of the most affected allocations by the adjustment plan of Milei’s Executive launched since he took office on December 10, although in March the president updated pensions by decree, based on inflation, and not through a formula that had been in force since 2021.
With inflation at 263.4% year-on-year, one of the highest in the world, Argentina has 65% of its 6.5 million retirees on minimum payments and emergency supplements that reach 305 dollars per month – at the official exchange rate – which represents 82% of the country’s legal minimum wage.
Last Wednesday, some 2,500 retirees marched from Congress to the Casa Rosada (government headquarters) to demand that the president not veto the law, which they also felt did not give them a sufficient increase.
During the protest, there were clashes with the police, who used pepper spray and beat some retirees with batons, in application of the anti-riot protocol established by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich.
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2024-09-02 02:10:34
