Argentine Lawmakers File Criminal Complaint Against Milei Over IMF Deal
Argentine President Javier Milei. X/ @franklachota
March 11, 2025 Hour: 8:30 am
The far-right President seeks to finalize an extended facilities agreement.
On Monday, legislators from “Union for the Homeland” filed a criminal complaint against Argentine President Javier Milei “for abuse of authority and violation of the duties of a public official.”
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This legal action is a response to an emergency decree (DNU) through which the far-right politician seeks to finalize a new extended facilities agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The DNU stipulates that the IMF will grant Argentina new loans—of an unspecified amount—with a ten-year repayment term and an additional grace period of four years and six months.
These funds will serve two purposes. On one hand, the Argentine Treasury will use part of the loans to repurchase public securities (the so-called Non-Transferable Dollar Bonds) held by the Central Bank in order to clean up the monetary authority’s balance sheet, as its reserves are critically low.
Another portion of the new loans will be used to cover Argentina’s debt payments to the IMF over the next four years. Currently, Argentina’s external debt amounts to approximately US$41.3 billion.
The decree does not provide further details on the terms and conditions of the agreement being negotiated with the IMF since late 2024. Once published in the Official Gazette, the decree was sent to the Permanent Bicameral Commission of Congress to begin its review process.
Many opposition leaders have already stated that the DNU contradicts the Law on Strengthening the Sustainability of Public Debt, which was passed by Parliament in February 2021 under the administration of President Alberto Fernandez (2019-2023).
That law establishes that “any financing program or public credit operation” conducted with the IMF must be explicitly approved by a law passed by the National Congress. For this reason, the Milei administration was required to submit a bill so that both legislative chambers could debate the agreement with the IMF.
Instead of following the legal procedure, the far-right president opted to issue a DNU, a mechanism that only requires approval by a simple majority in one of the two chambers of Congress.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
