MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

No more public radio, TV, and newsagency under Milei

Aerolíneas will need to be competitive and not rely on State subsidies

Argentina's President-elect Javier Milei announced Monday in a broadcast interview that he would privatize the state-run Public TV (TVP), National Radio, and the news service Télam because he did “not adhere to those practices of having a covert Ministry of Propaganda.” He also explained he had plans for the oil company YPF and flag carrier Aerolíneas Argentinas to no longer hinge financially on the national treasury.

“We consider that Public Television has become a propaganda mechanism. During the campaign, 75% of the time that our space was talked about was done in a very negative way, paying for the dirty campaign, the campaign of fear,” Milei argued.

“I do not adhere to those practices of having a covert Ministry of Propaganda: it has to be privatized. The same with Radio Nacional. Everything that can be in the hands of the private sector is going to be in the hands of the private sector”, Milei went on.

Last week, Congresswoman-elect Lilia Lemoine of Milei's La Libertad Avanza warned a TVP reporter that she needed to be a good worker to keep her job because they were going to privatize the station, which resulted in the station's workers issuing a statement of condemnation claiming an attack on freedom of the press. “We repudiate the threat made by Lilia Lemoine to the TVP Noticias journalistic team that conducted the interview,” they aid.

Milei also said YPF needed to be rebuilt. It was a clear shot at Buenos Aires Province Governor who was Economy Minister under President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner when the company was repurchased by the Argentine State. “Since Mr. Axel Kicillof decided to nationalize it, the deterioration of the company in terms of results has made it worth less than when it was expropriated... Evidently, the first thing to do is to rebuild it,” Milei stressed.

Regarding Aerolíneas Argentinas, Milei said his administration would hand it “over to its employees” to compete in a country with an “open skies” policy. “Our idea is to hand it over to the employees and that they themselves do the purging and start competing in an open skies policy,” Milei also pointed out in one of his multiple interviews during his first day as President-elect. “Aerolíneas' personnel is a very qualified staff, the problem lies in the political contamination,” he underlined with the aeronautical unions meddling in the company's management.

An “open skies” policy means Aerolíneas will need to be competitive and pay “market” salaries. In the last fifteen years alone the company has received subsidies for more than US$ 8 billion.