Valen Iricibar 
Buenos Aires Governor Axel Kicillof opened the province’s legislative sessions on Monday with a speech heavy with criticisms toward President Javier Milei and setting strong boundaries for potential negotiations.
The speech follows weeks of tensions between governors and the national administration over budget cuts, including provincial shares of federal taxes and education funding. After publicly holding them responsible for the failure of the so-called omnibus bill, Milei unexpectedly called on them to sign a so-called “May Pact” on Friday.
“After submitting the people, democracy, and federalism to unprecedented aggression, we are being thrown an invitation that looks more like a threat,” Kicillof said, adding that the province was setting a hard stop on the administration’s “delirious centralism.” “It offers what [the government] claims to reject as a political method: ‘If you approve certain laws, you will receive the resources that were illegally taken from you.’”
“Argentina is federal, so Milei should […] stop extorting governors to pass laws that hurt the interests of their provinces.”
Federal tax shares, known in Spanish as coparticipación, are public funds distributed between the provinces and drawn from federal taxes, including income tax, property tax, and value-added tax. As governor, Kicillof has continually demanded that Buenos Aires should receive a higher share of federal taxes given the magnitude of its contributions.
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Tensions over coparticipación are a constant in Argentine politics and have been central since Milei took power in December. The latest example of the escalating row between the administration and the provinces came last week with Chubut’s Governor Ignacio Torres threatening to cut oil and gas supplies unless the government transferred tax funds. A federal court ruled in Chubut’s favor on Tuesday, leading the government to appeal to the Supreme Court. Milei’s call to discuss a political pact on Friday was widely considered unexpected.
While all but one governor stood behind Torres, reactions to Milei’s offered pact were mixed. Kicillof, similarly to La Pampa Governor Sergio Ziliotto, did not expressly reject the invitation but made the boundaries clear.
“You can count on us for work meetings, for meetings destined toward solving problems or even for debates. But if it’s about meetings for photo ops and marketing, you go on ahead, we can’t make it,” he said to clamorous applause.
The governor also mapped out seven points for potential negotiations, including the restarting of public works, annulling Milei’s “illegal and unconstitutional” emergency decree, and “the immediate replenishment of funds that were vengefully taken from the Argentine provinces.”
In a post on X on Monday evening, the government announced a summons to all provincial governors for a meeting on Friday, describing the approval of the failed omnibus bill and a tax relief package for the provinces as a “sign of goodwill.”
