The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has taken advantage of his three-day visit to Spain to hold an unusual meeting with representatives of large Spanish companies, which have been led by the president of the CEOE employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi. The president took advantage of the event, which took place at 9:30 this Saturday and lasted more than an hour, to present the economic program with which he intends to combat the hyperinflation that the country is experiencing and open investment opportunities for the private sector, according to several sources familiar with the meeting.
Taking advantage of his participation this Sunday in an event with international far-right leaders in Madrid, Milei made a call to the first swords of the Spanish companies that have a presence in Argentina. But this has not been the case in all cases. The meeting, which took place at the Argentine Embassy in Madrid, was attended by the president of Iberia, Marco Sansavini; the CEOs of Banco Santander, Abertis and Econener, Héctor Grisi, José Aljaro and Luis de Valdivia, respectively; the first vice president of Mapfre José Manuel Inchausti; the head of BBVA for South America, Jorge Sáenz de Azcunaga; and the executive president of Telefónica Hispam, Alfonso Gómez; as well as a representative of Dia.
Alonso Aznar was also present among the group of businessmen. The son of former Prime Minister José María Aznar is managing director of Strategic Alliances at Consello Group, a financial advisory firm. Likewise, the Embassy sent invitations to other important Spanish firms with subsidiaries in Argentina such as Gestamp, Técnicas Reunidas, Codere, Meliá or Prosegur, but EL PAÍS has not been able to confirm their attendance.
The far-right president’s speech lasted more than an hour, according to knowledgeable sources, one of whom described it as “very restrained.” During it he has exposed his economic recipe, based on large cuts and popularly known as the chainsaw, whose first results were recently praised by the International Monetary Fund. The Argentine president has outlined the battery of far-reaching measures that he has proposed to reform the country’s economy – the third largest economy in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico -, among which is achieving a stable framework to attract private investors. foreign. One of the current barriers to this is that Argentina’s year-on-year inflation is at 289.4%, one of the highest in the world.
After Milei’s intervention, the representatives of Spanish companies have taken up the baton. Garamendi has been the one who has extended the most in his turn to speak, while the directors of the different companies have limited themselves to detailing their investments in Argentina. Several people familiar with the content of the meeting point out that they have barely presented new business plans, beyond maintaining their presence in the South American country.
Once the meeting was over, Milei assured the press that he was waiting at the doors of the Embassy, and from the car, that the meeting was “fabulous.” Likewise, she has indicated that on her next trip to Spain, which will take place in a month to receive an award from the liberal entity Instituto Juan de Mariana, she does not expect to meet with the Spanish Government. On this occasion she has not made any appointment with any national authority either. At the beginning of the month, both Executives experienced a diplomatic crisis, when the Spanish Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, suggested in a conclave that the Argentine president had taken “substances.”
In search of normality
A problem shared by large Spanish firms operating in Argentina is the impossibility of freely accessing the exchange market and sending dividends to their parent companies. “We are fixing the issue of dividends. When we finish doing that, we are going to open the stocks. It is in our plans to open it as quickly as possible,” Milei confirmed last Wednesday at an event with local businessmen in Buenos Aires.
The Argentine Central Bank, one of the politicians’ most reviled enemies, recently authorized banks and companies to buy a bond to allow normalization in this area. For example, the local subsidiary of Santander, the main private entity by deposit volume in Argentina, received authorization on May 3 to distribute dividends of 247 million euros.
But beyond the financial sector, the new state deregulation policy may have effects on the businesses of other Spanish firms. In April, the Argentine Government repealed a rule approved in 2020 that regulated mobile telephone services, as well as cable television and internet access. Telefónica will operate in a free market environment, although it feels the encouragement of the Administration, in the face of the heavyweight of telecommunications in Latin America, the Mexican Carlos Slim. The State scrapping bill, which awaits consideration by the Argentine Senate before the end of the month, also includes changes in the aeronautical sector, which would allow companies such as Iberia to carry out domestic flights in a market without minimum prices.