Milei trumpets in Germany the success of its fiscal adjustment

The Argentine president, Javier Mileistated that he has defeated the “socialists” with “the largest fiscal adjustment in the history of Argentina”, while collecting a medal in Hamburg on the eve of a brief meeting with the chancellor Olaf Scholzwhose agenda has been reduced to a minimum.

“The reason why the socialists are so violent is because it is working and they are failing,” Milei said in his acceptance speech for the medal awarded by the Hayek Societyultra-liberal, referring to its economic recipe.

Milei stressed that he inherited from the previous Government a fiscal deficit of 15% of GDP. “We decided to undertake an adjustment. Today I tell you that six months later we have made the largest fiscal adjustment in the history of Argentina,” Milei said.

“Obviously this was not going to be cost-free. But we always told people to their faces that there was no money, that it was going to be hard, that the beginning was going to be complicated,” she stated.

However, against all the predictions that it would not be possible, “what is beginning to be seen in the first signs of April and May is that there is beginning to be recoverygrowth,” said Milei.

The Argentine president maintained that he faced all kinds of obstacles from politics, that “he was a machine to prevent” and tried to “carry out a coup d’état.”

He was, however, convinced that with the structural reforms The country will take a leap, until it becomes “the freest country on the planet.”

The president of the Hayek Society and director of the Kiel Institute for Economic Studies (IfW), Stefan Koothspraised Milei as one of the “rare pioneers who fortunately appear in moments of greatest need” to give a devastated country the opportunity to get out of the dead end to which “interventionism” has led it.

“His main opponent is called cultural Marxismsince the purely economic socialism of Karl Marx was already liquidated long ago on a theoretical and practical level,” said Kooths.

The Hayek Society has been the target of criticism in Germany in recent years for its refusal to distance itself from far-right figures, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) deputy. Beatrix von Storchwho is counted among its members.

Among those attending today’s event was the controversial former head of the German secret services, among others. Hans-Georg Maassen, Known for spreading conspiracy theories and for his links with various far-right personalities.

protests

Several hundred demonstrators protested this Saturday in Hamburg against Milei’s presence, based on a call launched by Argentine and Latin American diaspora organizations and German NGOs and left-wing organizations.

With banners with slogans like ‘Neoliberal Misery’some activists gathered in front of the hotel where the ceremony took place.

Meanwhile, about 400, according to the regional network NDR, with signs on which messages such as ‘Milei is not freedom, it is fascism’ either ‘Argentina is not for sale’marched to request the annulment of the medal award.

The call was part of the so-called “anti-Milei month”a series of events in various parts of Germany that had been called a platform of Argentine and German organizations.

Meanwhile, the main German newspapers reported the visit of a “difficult guest” who has become a “rising star of the global right,” according to the German public broadcaster ARD.

Milei will travel this Sunday to Berlinwhere he will meet with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Although initially the Argentine was going to be received with military honors and a joint press conference had been announced, these plans were abandoned at the last minute.

“At the end of the day it is a very brief working visit, at the request of the Argentine president, I say this expressly,” explained a spokesman for the German Government. Steffen Hebestreitwhich stressed that there was a “clear refusal” from Milei to participate in a press conference.

The German media also speculated that the annulment could be related to the comments of a spokesman for the German Executive who this week described Milei’s statements about the Spanish Prime Minister as “in bad taste.” Pedro Sánchez.