An Argentinian minister has sparked fears of a “new Falklands” by suggesting that his province could seek independence due to its booming economy.
Jorge D’Onofrio, transport minister for the Buenos Aires proivence’s left-wing Peronist party, said the region could have the “biggest GDP in Latin America” if it was allowed to become a nation in its own right.
He told Radio Splendid: “I could be proposing today as a leader of Buenos Aires that we go to a constitutional reform to see if we get out of the national state. If the province of Buenos Aires were a state today, it would have the richest GDP in Latin America.”
D’Onofrio clarified that independence is not the only option for his province, but it’s “a debate that we Buenos Aires citizens have to have”.
He said: “We produce 45 percent of Argentina’s wealth and we collect 22 percent of revenue sharing, subsidising the inefficiency of the rest of the national state and the provinces.”
Argentina’s national government is led by right-wing libertarian President Javier Milei, and D’Onofrio hit out against his policies, calling them “madness” and accusing him of destroying the nation.
These comments are just the latest in an ongoing power struggle between Argentina’s central government and Buenos Aires – the country’s largest province.
The province doesn’t include the city of Buenos Aires itself, yet it still covers about 17.5 million people – nearly 40 percent of Argentina’s population. The main city is La Plata with nearly one million inhabitants.
The province is still governed by the opposition Peronist party, as are four other provinces in Argentina, who lost the presidency elections nearly a year ago.
The idea of the Buenos Aires province becoming independent has already been slammed as “ridiculous” by the opposition.
Luciano Laspina, a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and party of centre-right ex-President Mauricio Macri, shot down the idea.
She wrote in a post on X: “The proposal to make the Province of Buenos Aires independent from the Argentine Republic – made by one of [Buenos Aires province governor Axel] Kicillof’s ministers – is the most ridiculous thing that has been said in years.”