Javier Milei used a national broadcast to announce a package of bills intended to turn the pillars of his economic programme into permanent rules. The first bill amends the Central Bank's charter; it is joined by a balanced-budget rule called the “fiscal lock” and reforms of capital and insurance markets. The government presented the package as an institutional safeguard against future changes of course.
The central shift concerns the BCRA. The proposal limits its mandate to preserving the value of the currency, bars it from financing the national Treasury, provinces and municipalities, and strengthens the independence of its authorities. It also restricts the distribution of dividends arising from liquidity operations and eliminates non-transferable notes, instruments previously used in financial relations between the Central Bank and the state.
The announcement also marks a redefinition of the promise with which Milei entered national politics. As a candidate he said he would close the Central Bank; as president he has chosen to retain it and rewrite its legal purpose. During the fourteen-minute broadcast, he portrayed that choice as a long-term shield and called the package the most important set of structural reforms in the last 91 years.
Work on the new charter took months inside the institution. In the final stage, Economy Minister Luis Caputo and BCRA president Santiago Bausili reviewed the wording with Milei at the Olivos residence. Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger also examined the text, while the final legal drafting was handled by Legal and Technical Secretary María Ibarzábal Murphy.
The “fiscal lock” completes the package's political core. The mechanism calls for a shutdown of spending if Congress fails to restore balance in the public accounts. Initial reactions showed broad agreement among economists on the need to strengthen monetary independence and fiscal discipline, but also warnings about the detailed wording, the lock's practical operation and the political viability of sustaining it.
The legislative sequence will not be simultaneous. The presidential office said the Central Bank charter reform will enter the Chamber of Deputies first, but gave no date for the capital-market, insurance and permanent fiscal-rule bills. The announcement's real scope will begin to emerge when Congress sees the complete articles and the government's ability to assemble support for turning the broadcast into binding law becomes clear.
