The reception with military honors was canceled at short notice, as was the joint press conference: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met behind closed doors on Sunday with the Argentine president and the self-proclaimed ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Javier Milei. There was only a brief photo opportunity at the start, both greeted each other with a handshake in front of the government headquarters.
Only an hour was allotted for the conversation – at Milei’s request, as the Germans say. During the reception in front of the Chancellery, several dozen demonstrators protested against the visit with posters such as “Down with Milei”.
With chainsaw and “rat” sayer
The head of state of South America’s second-largest economy, which belongs to the G20 group of major industrialized and emerging countries, is considered eccentric and is often compared to former US President Donald Trump. In the election campaign he appeared with a running chainsaw, he likes to call unpleasant parliamentarians ‘rats’ and for him the state is the root of all evil.
The meeting in the Chancellery was expected to focus mainly on economic issues. Argentina has many raw materials such as lithium, which is urgently needed in Germany. Moreover, talks on a free trade agreement between the European Union and the South American economic association Mercosur remain stuck.
Appearance in the presence of AfD politician
Milei had already arrived in Germany on Saturday and received the medal from the liberal Friedrich August von Hayek Society in Hamburg – in the presence of the AfD politician Beatrix von Storch and the chairman of the right-conservative Values Union, Hans-Georg Maassen. In his speech he took a more moderate tone and limited himself to setting out his radical liberal reform course.
Before Scholz, only four heads of state or government have received Milei since he took office six months ago: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Pope Francis as head of state of the Vatican. Milei skipped the usual trips of Argentine presidents to important neighboring countries such as Brazil and Chile due to ideological differences. He has been to the US several times, but without an appointment at the White House. Instead, he met with Tesla boss Elon Musk and former President Trump.
Source: Krone
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