Interview. Guillermo Francos: “The Pro has to provide political structure and leaders; We will have to see if we have coincidences” By Elisabetta Piqué

ROME.- On the eve of first meeting that President Javier Milei and Pope Francis will have tomorrow -who will greet each other before the canonization ceremony of Mama Antula, the first Argentine saint and will meet again on Monday in an official audience-, the Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos He was more than optimistic.

“I think they are going to have a very good understanding and that they are going to have a very good relationship in the future“said Francos, who knows Jorge Bergoglio well since he had him in his fourth year as a Literature and Psychology teacher at the school in El Salvador.

In an interview he gave to THE NATION Already Clarín in the lobby of his hotel, shortly after landing in this capital, Francos also spoke about the explosive political situation, the layoffs, the tug-of-war with the governors and a possible agreement with former President Macri.

-How do you get there, how do you feel?

-No, I feel very good, very excited for this opportunity of the beatification of the First Argentine Saint tomorrow and obviously also for the visit to Pope Francis, who without a doubt always generates a very special emotion because he is our Pope and because also in the particular case due to a new relationship with a president, who although he had some divergent opinions with him and with responses from some representatives of the Church in Argentina, it was a stage that was completely overcome so I suppose it will be a meeting very constructive and with the intention that the Pope visit us soon in Argentina.

-How do you imagine the relationship that these four years will be like with Pope Francis and Javier Milei?

-I imagine it is very good, I believe that once we have overcome that distance that we just mentioned, the Pope is Argentine, he knows the Argentine idiosyncrasy, that of our people, he is going to meet a president out there who is different from what previous presidents have been in the Argentina, but with a man of faith, of many convictions, of great strength and who sees the enormous possibility that Argentina will finally find a path of transformation. So I think they are going to have a very good understanding and that they are going to have a very good relationship in the future.

-Is he a very different president because he is a outsider of politics and does the Pope value that he gets involved in politics?

-The Pope told me in a note a few days after the phone call with Milei. I was very happy with Francisco’s conversation with President Milei. That conversation was a bit casual at best, but the Pope does nothing that is casual, and it was a very emotional conversation with a great rapprochement, so I immediately sent an email to Francis telling him that I was very happy personally. that we could begin to build that bond. And I told him: “Now I ask you to pray for me,” like he always does, right? Then he answered me: “Guillermo, politics is the highest form of charity.”

-The point that Milei is not someone from politics, who has been involved, but who a priori seems to have different ideas from those of the Pope regarding how to address the fight against poverty and how to fix the economy, how can he influence that relationship?

– The expressions of the Church usually linked to the social problems that are experienced both in Argentina and in any country in the world, what Milei is proposing are the causes, the origin. So what Javier says is: let’s try to solve the causes that generate social inequalities, let’s not just focus on addressing the problem of injustice that some people experience, but let’s see why they occurred. It seems to me that there is the difference in points of view. Obviously I understand the concern perfectly, the Church has always had a concern for social issues, for poverty, for the weakest, and Milei also has them from a different perspective: he believes that mechanisms must be generated through freedom so that the economy of a country with all the potential that Argentina has, develops. This seems to me to be what some members of Argentine politics still cannot understand, because I speak a lot with them, they all say that a change is necessary. But when you propose a change through a very important law, the obstacles begin.

Karina and Javier Milei, at the Colosseum in RomeX

-Do you think there is room for a talk with the governors so that they evaluate the possibility of also promoting this project in Congress again? You withdrew it, but the governors need the funds and they need a discussion raised perhaps on other axes, are you open to that?

-How not? I always believe that we live in a democratic, republican system, in which there are different institutions and each of the institutions has its role to play, how can we not listen if there is a proposal from the provincial governments, from the legislators? What do we share? Of course we are going to listen to it. Now they also have to listen to the proposals made by the Executive, which is the one that has the responsibility of managing and administering, especially in a situation like this, because something very logical happened, because a law that in its articles first and second establishes the emergency situation, and when they begin to be dealt with in the following 3 or 4 articles, the instruments that Congress gives to deal with that emergency begin to subtract paragraphs from the articles, and say, this one doesn’t work, this one It doesn’t go, this one doesn’t go, this one doesn’t go. Then they leave him without elements to treat the emergency. So why do we declare an emergency if they are not allowed to treat?

-Wasn’t it a mistake to put 600 articles when there was precisely an emergency and focus only on the emergency and not, let’s say, make this mega law that touched on issues that were not a priority?

-Well, it can be seen in different ways. I think that the emergency situation in the country may not have needed 600 items, but rather it needed 5,000, and perhaps the essential part was in the 300 items that were finally brought to the venue. But the issues that we have to transform in Argentina are many, there are not a few things, there are many issues, because we have become a third or fourth level country when we have had and have human and economic resources to be a first class country. level in the world. So these are things that we have to modify, we have to do them, they will not have come out now, but the President is modifying them. Be careful, because it is also a bit of the message from the President and the Minister of Economy himself. They have said that we are going to continue governing with the instruments we have, and with those instruments, by decrees, by resolutions, but what we have done so far in two months has allowed us to stabilize the economy, we are still going to have some months with inflation, but it is going down, the deficit for the month of January was zero, as promised, expenses have been cut everywhere and we have to balance the economy.

-Does the governors’ complaint that they are not sending them funds have merit?

-No, the governors are receiving all the funds that correspond to the co-participation of taxes that are co-participable. Then there is another series of funds that have been granted without being co-participating funds that are suspended because there is no money to pay them. Everything that has to do with infrastructure issues, etc., is not happening today because if not, we will not have zero deficit, if we continue inventing… When there is no money, there is no money, then the proposal of the President Milei is a different proposal, we are going to govern with what there is and we all have to adjust. All the ministers have made tremendous adjustments in their areas. I said the other day that my organization was made up of three ministries, Interior, Environment and Tourism and Sports, today that is all in one ministry; These ministries had 14 secretariats, today we have 4 secretariats; Those 14 secretariats had 50 or so undersecretaries. Then they were cut to less than half. The State has been used a lot for politics. What is said about the ministries being infected with people from La Cámpora is true, they are full of people from La Cámpora, the national organizations throughout the country are full of people from La Cámpora. The State has been used to build a political force within Kirchnerism and this is true, it is like that. So we have to modify that, we are going to do everything possible, it is not yet completely resolved, but we are going to solve it.

-One of the decisions that the President made after what was the omnibus law was to fire officials, today he said that there could be more layoffs and that he is exploring the possibility of an agreement with Macri, what is known about that?

-Well, the decisions on dismissals that the President may make are decisions of the President, I have no news other than what I read at some point. It was an exclusive decision of the President. The President made decisions, of course. If he is going to continue drinking, well, I suppose he will see the performance of each official, because I believe that we are all subject to the same thing. The President is the one who decides and if there is any official who does not meet the objectives of his position, in the sense of reducing spending, efficiency in management, clear alignment with government instructions, we are all subject to the same rule.

-At the moment, you are “firm as a statue’s hair”…

-As long as a big wind doesn’t come and the curler falls apart…

-And the agreement for a merger with Macri. How do you evaluate it?

-The President has spoken with former President Macri on repeated occasions and is having conversations. I believe that your party and your bloc have worked together with us during the period of treatment of the law, although we had different positions during the election and we confronted each other politically in the election, but we always confronted with the same idea of a transformation, out there not exactly the same, but quite similar. If they have a vocation to work together towards the future, I believe that everyone will be open.

-Do you have to add the PRO? Can it add something to the government, not in terms of positions, but in terms of political structure?

-Well, it is a party that has won a national election and has legislators and has governors. The strength of the PRO is built on several years and several elections, which I think it has to contribute, of course. Both in political structure and in leaders, we will have to see if we have coincidences and have the same view on how Argentina’s problems are solved. The President will surely discuss this with the leaders of other forces to see if progress can be made.

-And as Minister of the Interior, having a joint bloc of 75 deputies, what would it mean for you that you have to be the one who coordinates with Congress to pass the laws?

-I think it is important to have a bloc of more deputies than we have, it makes our task easier. But I also highlight the task we have done so far, because we really did a very important task despite having such a small block. Our deputies and the President of the Chamber and the people of the Executive who also worked in daily conversations in Congress about this law, I believe they have done a very good job that unfortunately did not have the result we expected, but we will continue to insist.