Argentina wants to join OECD as soon as possible

By Estudio Chaloupka

Argentina's President Javier Milei has sent a letter to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), formally requesting to start accession talks and do so "as fast as possible", according to Reuters. Milei pledged a “new era” for Argentina as he was sworn in as the new president on December 10, 2023.

On 25 January 2022, the OECD Council decided to open accession discussions with Argentina. This follows careful deliberation by OECD Members on the basis of its evidence-based Framework for Consideration of Prospective Members and the progress made by Argentina since its first request for OECD membership. 

Since 1982, Argentina has participated in the substantive work of many of the OECD’s specialised Committees and has adhered to selected OECD legal instruments. As a G20 country, together with Mexico and Brazil, Argentina benefits from the broad OECD-G20 agenda and participates in the development of standards for better global governance such as the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project and the OECD-G20 Principles of Corporate Governance.

In this context, Argentina strengthened its co-operation with the OECD via a tailored Action Plan, which mobilised OECD support for Argentina’s key reform priorities across 16 policy areas. Argentina presented the plan to OECD Secretary-General Ángel Gurría in 2017 in the margins of the Meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 

The OECD’s Global Relations Secretariat has managed the strategic coordination of this relationship on behalf of Members, ensuring that the dialogue remained focused, forward-looking and mutually beneficial. Meetings were usually held between Argentinian officials, experts from OECD countries and the OECD Secretariat on mutually agreed upon topics and have been jointly prepared with analytical studies. Argentina has valued the opportunity to discuss major policy issues and challenges in a multilateral context and to learn from the experiences of OECD countries facing similar challenges in many areas. In turn, this dialogue has enriched the OECD’s knowledge and policy advice, and has benefitted OECD members and non-OECD economies by enabling them to acquire a better understanding of Argentina.