With ministerial change, Milei begins “new stage” of government, says head of the Civil House

Almost six months after taking office, the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, changed the name of the main position in his ministry – the Chief of Staff or Civil House. Nicolás Posse, who was one of Milei’s main interlocutors at Casa Rosada, left for long-time politician Guillermo Francos. At 74 years old, Francos has worked in several Argentine governments in recent decades and is known for dialoguing with different sectors of the country’s politics.

His role as head of Cabinet will be, as he said, “harmonizing” the objectives of the ministry and, consequently, of the Milei government. The expectation among government politicians and the financial market is that Francos will obtain support from the National Congress, where the official party A Liberdade Avança (LLA) has a minority of votes. This Tuesday, the financial market celebrated Francos’ appointment, with Argentine shares rising, according to the sector’s interpretation.

Francos exchanges the then Ministry of the Interior, which becomes the secretariat, for the most powerful seat next to the president. The optimism of politicians and the financial market is due to the expectation that it will obtain support for the approval of the so-called Base Law – initially the Bus Law and which provides for the deregulation of the State, including privatizations. To approve it, the government eliminated a series of articles and reduced the number of companies to be fully or partially privatized.

Francos has a fluid dialogue with Milei and his sister, the powerful Karina Milei, whom the president usually calls ‘the’ boss. The future chief of staff should take office when Milei returns from her seventh trip abroad in less than a semester – four of them to the United States. This time for a meeting with technology entrepreneurs, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, with whom he will meet for the third time since arriving at Casa Rosada.

Francos is a friend of the former Argentine ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli, who is now the Secretary of Tourism, Environment and Sports and maintains a fluid dialogue with Brazilian authorities.