“Everything that can be privatized will be,” warned the far-right government of Javier Milei, in power for 11 months. A first case is underway: IMPSA, a metallurgical company sold at the lowest price to American capital, according to experts. The wave of privatization threatens to include Aerolíneas Argentinas, despite the refusal of Congress, and eight state companies authorized to enter private capital which appear in the Basic Law that the ruling party managed to approve.
The demolition of the state began with IMPSA (Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anónima), one of Argentina’s most important high-tech companies, which makes turbines and generators for Latin America and which had been saved and nationalized in 2021 under Alberto’s government. Fernández (64% of shares for the Nation, 21% for the province of Mendoza).
ARC Energy, a North American capital company dedicated to the production, supply and services of oil and gas inputs, was the sole official bidder and will retain IMPSA’s state stock in exchange for 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 in 2024 it has been paralyzed. “This year he has not developed any new projects, he has not gone out to win new contracts. If they had done interesting business management, they would sell it for more. It’s like liquidating it.”
The EPyCA report also points out that “under the leadership of Fernández, the commercial potential” of the company founded as a metallurgical workshop in 1917 was ruined. Concretely, they claim, the company was not included in the contracts to modernize Argentine dams.
“It is privatized, closed or transferred to employees”
The talk of pushing the state to sell its assets has focused these days on Aerolíneas Argentinas. “We privatize it, we close it or we hand it over to employees, there is no alternative,” declared presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni, beyond the refusal of Congress – the airline was excluded of the Basic Law. In addition, the debate in the Assembly on the new projects got bogged down due to the lack of votes. The current strategy therefore seems to consist of deepening the conflict with the unions.
This is a discursive battle against workers. According to Milei, the problem lies in “the privileges they have.” The workers, for their part, are demanding an improvement in wages because they claim that there is a gap of 90% in wages compared to the inflation accumulated since December (158% until September).
In the event that Casa Rosada wants to advance in the crisis preventive procedure, as it foresees, the scenario will not be simple and the government will have to demonstrate to the judiciary that there is indeed an economic crisis and not just a crisis. simple political intention to liquidate the national 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 does not have a plan with the airline. “The Milei government has no project with the company, the Basic Law does not provide for its privatization and does not say how it will replace it. So he’s in trouble. Currently, air transport is driven by macroeconomics. Argentina is expensive in dollars. Serious economists point out that since December until today, inflation in dollars is 90%. The government deregulated everything so that any airline could fly, but none came here based on a political scenario with more questions than certainties,” he says.
Kalos recognizes that at Aerolíneas Argentinas what predominates is the ideological question, in the absence of a roadmap. “There are no conditions of sale provided and there is no impact assessment. It’s an ideological question. “The government is not discussing arguments, it is only proposing that we must privatize.”
“If they downsize the business or close it, the consequence is that the country will go offline. The most serious thing is that if before there were trains and planes, now we will no longer have trains or planes,” adds Dominelli.
Concerning trains, the Government has already given worrying signals. “Whatever can happen to the private sector to make it more efficient, that’s how it will be done,” said presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni, announcing the Executive’s decision to privatize the company. Belgrano Cargas y Logística, which operates three transport lines. . railway charges.
These railway lines were handed over to private capital in 1999, at the end of the government of conservative Peronist Carlos Menem (1989-1999), architect of the last great wave of privatization that Argentina experienced.
Belgrano Cargas, returned to the state in 2008 due to concession problems, is one of several companies that the far-right government is seeking to sell to private capital.
Shortly after assuming the Argentine presidency, Milei included 41 state-owned companies as “subject to privatization” in a bill on economic deregulation, a list that was later reduced to eight companies as part of negotiations with the opposition to repeal the Basic Law.
According to official data, 100,263 people work in the state’s approximately 45 companies and companies, around 10,000 fewer since the start of the Milei government.
The most limited list included Energía Argentina (with assets in electricity and gas transportation and marketing); Intercargo (airport services to airlines); Water and Sanitation in Argentina (Aysa, drinking water and sanitation services); Belgrano Cargas; Railway operating company (Sofse, passenger trains); and road corridors (toll roads and highways).
The new law also allows the entry of private capital into 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 State remains obliged to maintain a majority stake.
The government announced the deregulation of the postal service, in line with the idea of privatizing the Argentine Post, although this was not included in the aforementioned basic law. Federico Sturzenegger, Minister of Deregulation and Transformation of the Argentine Nation State, predicted that the next step would be to get rid of the national postal company which, according to him, no longer has strategic value. “It will be privatized, concessioned or transferred to employees.” All this in the name of freedom.
