By Ezekiel Bucetto on September 18, 2025 from Buenos Aires
On a massive day, the university mobilization coincided with the session in chamber of Deputies that restored funding to universities and the Pediatric Emergency.
A massive crowd copied Congress at the Third Federal University March where they rejected Milei’s vetoes and the education and health laws that had been passed are maintained.
Today the Congress and the surrounding square were the scene of a day that will be remembered for being another hard setback for the Executive, which tried to defund universities and hospitals.
The Third Federal University March convened thousands and thousands of people in defense of public education and health, in parallel with the special session in the Chamber of Deputies where the presidential vetoes were discussed.
The mobilization, which from early on filled the Plaza del Congreso, had been called by teaching guilds, the Argentine University Federation (FUA), trade unions and social organizations, pending a key vote.
Historic Federal March: Thousands copied Congress in defense of the university
From noon columns from national universities, along with doctors and patients from Garrahan Hospital, began to arrive on the ground as the sun came up.
After 4.30 p.m., the central event began with the speeches of student representatives and the FAGDUT, the guild of teachers and researchers of the UTN.
Each intervention focused on the urgent need to reverse the vetoes on university funding and the Pediatric Emergency Act, warning that these cuts threaten both the education of thousands of young people and the health of hundreds of children.
Meanwhile, the debate was advancing in the town of deputies. Minutes after 17, the Lower House rejected President Javier Milei’s vetoes of both the University Finance Act and the Pediatric Emergency Act.
With blunt majorities, both rules were firm and must now be applied despite the resistance of the Executive.
The legislative results spread in seconds to the Plaza. The crowd erupted in applause, chants and hugs. It is a triumph of the students and of society as a whole who stuck together against the adjustment, a teacher exclaimed as he celebrated in the midst of the tide of university flags.
In addition to academic organizations, CGT, CTA unions and multiple social movements participated in the call.
Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof participated in the university march and after the ruling, also expressed himself harshly against the vetoes: “The people are standing and in a massive way telling Milei that the universities are not for sale, and the hospitals are not defunded and the rights are not negotiated, he said.
“Without education or public health there is no future for Argentines”.
The image we were left with this afternoon was that of an overflowing square, where thousands of people, from different generations and sectors, converged in defense of two rights that they considered to be “nonnegotiable”: education and public health.
With the reading of the final document of the universities and the beginning of the crowds leaving at around 6.30 p.m., a day was closed with a clear political response in Congress, where a blow was dealt with the decisions of the government against a president who could care less about the wellbeing of the people
Source: Data Diario translation Resumen Lationamericano – English