Although the Buenos Aires Legislature approved a request for debt of up to 3.685 billion, the Casa Rosada will veto the issuance of new debt to Axel Kicillof
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After approval in the Buenos Aires Legislature of the request for debt of up to 3.685 billion, which includes issuance of Treasury Bills and four lines of credit, officials from the national government decided they would not grant authorization for new debt. Instead, Casa Rosada anticipated — according to official sources cited by the media — that only the refinancing of existing liabilities will be approved: with better rates, through "rollover" of maturities, but without injecting fresh resources.
This criterion is based on the application of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, a 2004 regulation that allows denial of new loans if a province has current expenditures that exceed inflation — as they claim is the case in Buenos Aires — or if its indebtedness compromises fiscal balance.
Javier Milei.
The Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, was clear: the Buenos Aires province "is not complying with that rule", so "technically, what is new debt today should not be subject to approval."
Caputo explained that national authorization falls to the Secretariat of Finance — headed by Carlos Guberman — and that the difference between "new debt" and "refinancing" is key: only the latter would be acceptable, because it doesn't increase the liability, but rather seeks to restructure maturities.
In that regard, those close to the libertarian movement supported the decision: refinancing already issued debt is "fine, the right thing... as long as it's at a lower rate." They confirmed that the La Libertad Avanza bloc received instructions to support only the rollover, not new indebtedness, when the reform of the Banco Provincia Charter was voted on.
Meanwhile, sources from the Buenos Aires government maintain there was no dialogue at all with the violet bloc and warn that when the national government evaluates, they will show that the requested amount was intended to refinance maturities — not to take on new debt. "None of it is for new debt," they stated.
Bloque de LLA.
The Buenos Aires head of La Libertad Avanza, Sebastián Pareja, was even harsher: he said that "Milei is not going to support it" and accused the governor of seeking to indebt the province for two years for his "presidential campaign." In his view, the request was "like throwing a liter of gasoline on a house that was already on fire."
After the meeting of the May Council at Casa Rosada, Chief of Cabinet Manuel Adorni announced that the national administration will propose a bill so that provinces publicly commit to not requesting debt authorizations if they have a primary deficit. Only "debt rollovers" or cases of "credit risk higher than that of the Nation" will be allowed.
Kicillof.
The message is clear: the aim is to strengthen institutional support for fiscal balance, imposing discipline and transparency, and ruling out "easy solutions" through new debt.
The relationship between Milei and Kicillof remains tense. In contrast, provinces such as Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Córdoba — also governed by forces different from the Buenos Aires Peronism — have already obtained approval to take on new debt with the national Executive's consent. In this context, the request from the Province of Buenos Aires stands out not only for its magnitude, but also for its timing: an administration that, according to the government, seeks to finance excessive current spending at the expense of indebtedness, in open confrontation with the fiscal order plan promoted by Milei's government.
