The presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, confirmed this Friday that the Government will declare the state company Aerolíneas Argentinas “subject to privatization.”
It will do so through an Emergency Necessity Decree (DNU) that the Executive Branch will publish in the coming days. in response to the open conflict between the aeronautical unions and the management of Javier Mileiwhich in recent weeks led to stoppages with delays and cancellations of the flag airline’s flights.
According to Adorni, this process is protected by law. This news arises after the Chamber of Deputies opened this Wednesday the debate on the airline’s privatization projects.seeking for the initiative to come down to the venue next Wednesday, October 2.
For now, The Government supports the project designed and presented by PRO deputy Hernán Lombardiwhich seeks to declare the company subject to privatization based on the State Reform Law, which the Government will now do directly through a DNU.
In this sense, the article of the State Reform Law cited by the spokesperson, on which the DNU will be based, states that “the declaration of ‘subject to privatization’ will be made by the National Executive Branch, and must, in all cases cases, be approved by law of Congress”.
Thus, the Decree will grant “preferential parliamentary procedure” to the project to privatize, totally or partially, Aerolíneas Argentinas. It should be noted that the possibility of privatizing the company was already debated this year in Congress as part of the Base Law, but the Government did not achieve consensus to move forward with this point.
“Aerolíneas Argentinas has a chronic deficit as a result of the disastrous efforts carried out by each and every one of the populist governments,” Adorni criticized after confirming the news. And he added: “This causes the need to carry out constant transfers of public resources that put fiscal sustainability at risk.”
The crisis
According to the data shared by the spokesperson, “since its renationalization in 2008, contributions from the National State to cover the company’s deficit exceed US$8,000 million.” To which he questioned: “Why should Argentines, some of whom have never traveled in their lives, cover this atrocity?” And, to close, he once again listed the benefits of the Airline’s pilots that he had already criticized on previous occasions. These are:
Travel in business class for pilots and their families: “If there are no seats available, the airline is obliged to lower passengers who have paid for their ticket to accommodate them,” said Adorni, who added that “this benefit costs Aerolíneas Argentinas , and therefore to the Argentines, close to 20,000 million Argentine pesos per year”; high salaries: pilots earn between $3 and $20 million Argentine pesos per month (US$3,099 to US$20,660).
