¡Buenos días from Greenway Parks! This is the Rorshok Argentina Update from the 5th of March twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Argentina.

Let’s start with a major follow-up to last week’s lead story. On Friday the 27th, the Senate officially turned President Milei’s Labor Modernization bill into law. After an eleven-hour session, the final vote was forty-two in favor and twenty-eight against. As covered last week, the version that passed does not include the controversial sick-pay cuts. However, it does solidify the new severance fund and extends trial periods for new employees.

The CGT, the main union, has already filed lawsuits calling the law unconstitutional. They argue it violates the principle of non-regression, which means the state cannot take away rights workers have already earned. On Monday the 2nd, thousands of union members gathered in Plaza Lavalle to protest the new law as it took effect

In the same marathon session, senators also gave the green light to a new Juvenile Penal Code. This law lowers the age of criminal responsibility from sixteen to fourteen. Under the new rules, teens can now face prosecution for serious crimes, though the law mandates that they remain in specialized facilities separate from adult prisoners.

The atmosphere at Congress was tense on Sunday the 1st. To kick off the ordinary legislative year, Milei gave a ninety-minute speech in which he traded insults with opposition lawmakers, calling them criminals and using derogatory terms for supporters of the previous administration. He said his government has delivered the greatest transformation in history and promised to send a new package of reforms to Congress every single month this year.

The president also used the speech to announce a shake-up in his cabinet. Mariano Cúneo Libarona, the Justice Minister, has resigned. He had been offering his resignation for months, and the president finally accepted it. Taking his place is Juan Bautista Mahiques, the former Buenos Aires City Attorney General. Mahiques has deep ties to former President Mauricio Macri and is expected to push for a more “modern and independent” judicial system.

During his speech, the president took a direct swing at Javier Madanes Quintanilla, the owner of the tire giant Fate. Last week, we covered how the government ordered a fifteen-day pause on the layoffs of 900 workers at the San Fernando plant in Buenos Aires to allow for negotiations between the company and the union. Well, that pause ended on Wednesday the 4th without an agreement to keep the plant open.

While union leaders and company executives met at the Labor Secretariat, the streets outside turned into a battlefield. Police used pepper spray and water cannons to clear protesters who were blocking the bus lanes. The tire workers’ union called the plant's closure a scam and is demanding the state take over the factory to save jobs. For now, the government has extended the negotiation period until the 11th of March, but the tension is at a breaking point.

In a bit of historic news for trade, Argentina and Uruguay have become the first members of Mercosur to ratify the massive free-trade deal with the European Union. The Senate approved the treaty with nearly unanimous support on Thursday the 26th. While European farmers in places like France are still protesting the deal, the European Commission has already announced it will provisionally apply the trade part of the pact. This means local exporters could start seeing lower tariffs even before the rest of the bloc — Brazil and Paraguay — finishes their own paperwork.

In other news, Nahuel Gallo, the Argentine border guard who was jailed in Venezuela in late twenty twenty-four, is finally home. He arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday the 1st after almost 450 days in a Caracas prison. Gallo held an emotional press conference this week, describing his time in jail as psychological torture and noting that he won’t feel truly free until the other twenty-four foreigners still held there are released.

The homecoming sparked a political row, though. While the government held a formal event to welcome him, it turns out the Argentine Football Association, or AFA, was the one that actually negotiated his release through football connections in Venezuela. President Milei tried to downplay AFA’s role, while his officials asked why the football federation has such a close relationship with the Venezuelan regime.

On the energy front, Argentina just signed its largest-ever gas sale. A consortium led by YPF and Pampa Energía inked an eight-year deal to send two million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year to Germany. The project will use a massive floating factory ship in the Golfo San Matías, located in the southern province of Río Negro, starting in late twenty twenty-seven.

While this is a boost for the sector, the war in the Middle East is casting a shadow over these gains. Global tensions have sent oil prices up, but they have also caused Argentine bonds to plummet. The country risk index jumped to nearly 600 points this week. Analysts warn that while higher oil prices might help exports from the Vaca Muerta shale patch in Patagonia, the global instability is making international investors nervous about putting money into emerging markets like Argentina.

The Senate also voted this week to reform the National Glacier Law. The new bill allows provinces to decide if they want to permit mining in periglacial areas — the frozen land surrounding glaciers that acts as a water reserve. Protesters from Greenpeace tried to block the vote by jumping the fence at Congress, but twelve of them were arrested by security forces.

On the streets of the capital, the humanitarian situation is getting tougher. A new city census shows that the number of people living on the street has jumped by 30% in the last year. There are now more than 5,000 people without a home in Buenos Aires. The report notes that seven out of ten of them moved to the city from the provinces or from abroad, seeking help that they couldn't find elsewhere.

From one study to another, a recent report from the Health Ministry shows that Argentina’s fertility rate has crashed. You may have heard the discourse around this topic. Births have indeed dropped by 47% in the last ten years. But experts report that, unlike people’s theories on economics, this is largely due to a massive 65% drop in teen pregnancies thanks to better access to birth control. While this is good news for health, it’s raising alarms about who will pay for the pension system in the future.

Alarms also went off at Aerolineas Argentinas, the flagship carrier, after detecting a man’s travel hack. Juan Ignacio Veltri was arrested for supposedly hacking the Aerolíneas Plus system — which is the frequent flyer rewards program for the national airline. Veltri allegedly manipulated the system to get sixteen million miles for almost nothing. Then used the miles to fly to Madrid, Rome, and Cancun, costing the airline nearly half a million dollars.

The party ended for Veltri, but the literary world is celebrating. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, an Argentine writer, has made the longlist for the twenty twenty-six International Booker Prize. Her novel, We Are Green and Trembling, is a wild reimagining of colonial history in the South American jungle.

To close this episode, a recommended read: Writer Adrian Genesir shared an essay in English titled Argentina’s labor reform and the state we still expect. The piece, published by the Buenos Aires Herald, is a reflection on what he calls the Argentine paradox—the way people here can be furious at the state’s inefficiency while still depending on it for a sense of safety.

He argues that while modernization sounds good on a spreadsheet, it feels like exposure in an economy where the state has always been the only shield. Check out the full piece with the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Anything you want to tell us? info@rorshok.com.

¡Nos vemos la próxima semana!