Argentine Chief of Cabinet Guillermo Francos said Tuesday that he will push ahead on negotiations with senators to get key structural reforms approved, speaking on his first day on the job after his predecessor was fired by President Javier Milei.

“We hope it is approved in the Senate,” Francos said in a televised press conference.

On Monday night, Milei sacked Nicolás Posse from the post without saying why.

Milei, a right-wing libertarian now only six months on the job, said Francos will bring “professionalism, experience and political capacity” to the post “with the aim of providing greater political volume.”

Francos will oversee the Interior Ministry as part of his new job, Milei added in a statement.

Argentina’s former representative to the Inter-American Development Bank, Francos has worked in public office for much of his career since graduating as a lawyer in the 1970s. In 1996, he co-founded a liberal party with former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo and was elected a congressman. He went on to work for several years at Corporación América, a major conglomerate run by Argentine magnate Eduardo Eurnekian where Milei also worked for a time.

Ahead of the press conference, Francos said his political experience will help Milei navigate through what he called the “complexity” of Argentine politics.

“I have a greater possibility of dialogue,” Francos said on Radio Rivadavia.

He added that the so-called Bases Law is key for pulling the country out of a five-year financial crisis, calling it a “milestone” that will help the economy “take off” and attract investment, initially in mining, oil and natural gas.

The Bases bill and a fiscal reform bill were approved by the lower house on April 30, paving the way for a massive deregulation of the economy and a simplification of the tax system to help balance the budget.

The Bases bill is designed to deregulate the economy, including with changes in labor regulations to weaken union powers, and to privatize state companies. The fiscal reform bill calls for simplifying the tax system, reinstating income tax and holding a tax amnesty among other changes with the goal of slashing public spending to take the primary fiscal account to a 2% of GDP surplus this year from a 5% deficit in 2023.

ECONOMIC DEREGULATION

As part of the cabinet shuffle, Milei plans to appoint a key advisor, the economist Federico Sturzenegger, to a ministerial post in the next few days, Francos said.

A former national congressman and president of the central bank, Sturzenegger will focus on “the modernization of the state and economic deregulation” in the post, he added.

Sturzenegger, an adjunct professor of public policy at Harvard University, drafted some of the deregulation bills and decrees for the government.

[PHOTO: Guillermo Francos speaks to farmers in his former role as interior minister. Source: Interior Ministry]