Buenos Aires Herald 
Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni has released a modified version of the “May Pact” President Javier Milei will sign with a group of governors on July 8. The text accompanying the ten-point agreement says it aims to “refound the homeland’s founding social contract.”
The text seeks a shared political commitment to tax, labor and pensions reforms, fiscal balance, and the exploitation of natural resources.
The May Pact is a political agreement Milei first announced in March during his congress opening speech. It came in the midst of a bitter dispute with governors, who were demanding more resources for their provinces. Weeks earlier, the massive initial version of Milei’s Ley Bases — known at the time as the omnibus bill — had collapsed due to lack of support. The president had also called deputies who voted against it “traitors.”
The announcement was taken as a political olive branch to ease the tensions. While it carries no legal weight, the pact establishes a series of principles and broad political objectives that the Milei administration hopes most of Argentina’s parties can agree on.
Milei initially intended to sign the pact in Córdoba on May 25, the anniversary of the 1810 May Revolution. However, the president also said he would not sign it until the Ley Bases had been approved. Ultimately, the legislation was not passed until last week.
He is now seizing on another patriotic date — July 9, the anniversary of the declaration of Argentina’s independence — to sign the document.
Governors, lawmakers, union leaders and other major political figures have already received invitations, which include a dress code instructing guests to wear dark suits. The meeting will take place on Monday at 11 p.m. on the eve of a new anniversary of Argentina’s Independence Day. It will take place at the Historic House of Tucumán, where the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 9, 1816.
Milei initially said the pact would be signed on July 9. He later changed the schedule because he will lead a military parade in Buenos Aires on the anniversary itself.
The 10-point list is accompanied by a text that emulates both the Argentine Declaration of Independence and the National Constitution, using similar phrasing to their opening lines. It says the pact is being signed “before the eyes of the Eternal” and “may the forces from Heaven be with us,” a phrase that Milei himself made popular amongst his libertarian supporters. Adorni shared an image of the text in a font that mimicked 19th-century handwritten documents.
Some points of the pact have been changed in the latest document. The original said people would be able to choose a private system instead of a public one, but this has been cut. Now, it only calls for a reform to make the pensions system more sustainable, focused on those who made contributions to the system.
Milei has vocally opposed a moratorium that currently allows people to retire when they haven’t made enough contributions to the pensions system during their working years, and had attempted to eliminate it in the Ley Bases. That point was removed during the Congress debate.
The president also replaced a call for a “structural political reform” with a point calling for modern education, complete literacy, and no school abandonment. This was requested by members of the center-right Unión Cívica Radical party, which broadly supported the Ley Bases and fiscal package.
Tucumán Governor Osvaldo Jaldo is Milei’s only Peronist ally among the provincial leaders. All 10 governors from right-wing party PRO are expected to sign the agreement, as are three other governors who visited Casa Rosada on Tuesday along with Jaldo to discuss details of the pact: Martín Llaryora (Córdoba), Raúl Jalil (Catamarca), Gustavo Sáenz (Salta). Governors who belong to provincial parties are also expected to attend.
Several Peronist governors, meanwhile, have vocally rejected the invitation, including Axel Kicillof (Buenos Aires province), Ricardo Quintela (La Rioja), Sergio Ziliotto (La Pampa), Gildo Insfrán (Formosa) and Gustavo Melella (Tierra del Fuego).
The final version of the May Pact includes the following points:
• Inviolability of private property
• Non-negotiable fiscal balance
• Reduction of public spending by 25% of GDP
• Useful and modern kindergarten, primary and secondary education, with full literacy and no school abandonment
• Tax reform to alleviate tax pressure and promote trade
• Re-examination of the federal tax revenue sharing system and an end to the current “extortive” system
• Progress on exploiting the country’s natural resources
• Modern labor reform to promote formal employment
• Pension reform to make the system sustainable
• Open international trade so Argentina can become a key player in the global market
