Chainsaw in Saxony: This Was the Milei Conference

Hundreds of participants gathered on March 14 in Schkeuditz, Saxony, for the first Milei Conference, organized by the Milei Institute for Deregulation in Europe, founded at the end of 2025. Above all, the conference was a presentation of a right-wing libertarian movement that is also gaining strength in Germany. People attended who could well be described as cadres of the movement: mostly men, upper-middle class and white, often older, although there were also young people.

The goal of the conference was to join forces, make themselves visible to the public, and strengthen their own narrative amid the crisis of capitalism, which is becoming ever more acute. Argentine president Javier Milei, with his chainsaw, serves as a symbol capable of mobilizing people in Germany and Europe as well.

The conference, which took place at the Globana Messe & Event Campus halfway between Halle and Leipzig, was held under the slogan “Deregulate Germany. Now!” A wide range of topics was addressed, although the talks focused above all on economic issues. Their titles were partly creative, partly banal. A selection: “Key Points of Fiscal Policy” (by speaker Reiner Holznagel, saying: “Taxes are theft”), “Energy Policy with the Chainsaw” (by Björn Peters and Frank Hennig, who demand abolishing environmental regulations and reactivating nuclear energy), “More Freedom for Market Processes” (Stefan Kooths, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, who said: “All public spending must be put to the test”), or “Social Without the State” (by Frauke Petry: “Our social system conditions citizens to commit welfare fraud and punishes self-employment”).

These are therefore topics that belong to the basic repertoire of so-called deregulation libertarians. With them, they seek a restructuring of the state oriented toward the interests of capital and the elimination—without any replacement—of restrictions on the “free market,” which is presented as a system that functions perfectly. This includes regulations and obligations, but also workers’ rights and social benefits. The state should be reduced to a minimal basic function. At the Milei Conference, there was extensive debate over what exactly this function consists of: the ideas range from the total abolition of the state - a minority opinion within the pure doctrine of libertarianism - to minarchist ideas that aim to shrink the state but still grant it its regulatory and repressive function, that is, without replacing the judicial, police, and military apparatus with private service providers.

Who gathered in Schkeuditz?

At the Milei Conference, politicians, above all former members of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) and the liberal FDP (Free Democratic Party), economists, people from the business world, and journalists came together. The list of the main speakers provides a more precise picture of the conference and of the institute behind it.

The lawyer Carlos Gebauer is president of the Milei Institute. He was a member of the FDP and has no inhibitions about associating with the AfD, whose parliamentary group in the Bundestag invited him in February 2026 as an expert to the investigative committee on the coronavirus. For many years, Gebauer has tried to make right-wing libertarian ideology known to a broader audience through different media outlets, for example as a columnist for the magazine Eigentümlich frei, a guest contributor at Achse des Guten, or in Cicero. In addition, Gebauer is vice president of the Hayek Society, one of the main lobbying groups backing the Milei Institute. In 2020, Gebauer was one of the most prominent defenders of the controversial admission of Hans-Georg Maaßen into the Hayek Society. Maaßen was director of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence service [who was removed from office in 2018 after serious investigative failures regarding the far-right NSU group under his leadership became known]. In his welcoming speech in Schkeuditz, Gebauer claimed that deregulation had become a “human rights issue.” Milei is deregulating in Argentina, “and that is why we look to him.” According to his speech, “regulated” people must no longer remain silent, but must raise their “libertarian voice.”

In 2024, the Hayek Society attracted media attention by awarding a medal to the Argentine president for his “merits in favor of the idea of freedom.” According to the libertarian society, Milei was an “ambitious reformer in the spirit of Hayek.” Friedrich August von Hayek is considered one of the most important representatives of the Austrian School of economics, which has shaped libertarianism. This school opposed state interventions in the economy, which it described as a step on the road to socialism. The president of the Hayek Society is the economist Stefan Kooths, who works at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and gave a talk at the Schkeuditz conference on the topic “More Freedom for Market Processes.”

Gebauer’s deputy at the top of the new Milei Institute is Frauke Petry. The former leader of the AfD, who in 2017 founded the party Die blaue Partei (The Blue Party) as a “liberal-conservative alternative” and soon after failed, is now part of Team Freiheit (Team Freedom). This right-wing libertarian association was created in 2025 and defines itself, according to its own statements, as “anti-party,” although it plans to run in future elections. However, they intend to choose possible representatives not by party affiliation, but by their (supposed) abilities. Besides Petry, who was celebrated like a star in Schkeuditz, Team Freiheit includes Thomas Kemmerich (then FDP, now unaffiliated), who was Minister President of Thuringia for one day [in 2020, elected with AfD votes, which caused a political crisis], and Joana Cotar, who held a seat in the Bundestag for the AfD until last year. All of them gave speeches at the Milei Conference.

The Mises Institute is the third organization backing the newly founded Milei Institute. A central figure is the economist Philipp Bagus, who is listed as a founder of the Milei Institute and is part of the academic board of the Mises Institute. Bagus works at the private Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which has become a center of libertarian economic ideology in Europe under the leadership of Jesús Huerta de Soto. He flaunts his close relationship with the Argentine president, about whom he published an admiring biography in 2024. Apparently, it was Bagus who obtained Milei’s consent for the institute to bear his name. The academic board of the Milei Institute also includes Thorsten Polleit, president and founder of the Mises Institute.

Beyond Germany

But the Milei Institute does not only have support in Germany. It is intended to become a platform across the entire German-speaking region. Among the founding members is also the FPÖ politician and member of the Austrian National Council, Barbara Kolm. Kolm founded the Friedrich A. von Hayek Institute in 1993, based in Vienna, Austria’s capital, and has directed it since 2000. The academic board of the Milei Institute also includes the Swiss publicist Oliver Kessler, who describes himself as “consistently liberal,” was previously active in the SVP (Swiss People’s Party), and today runs the Liberal Institute in Zurich.

The Milei Institute presents itself as an academic institution. On its website it highlights that its members wish to “make their contribution from their respective fields, with their individual strengths and with their intellectual networks” and to help “support the exchange of knowledge and experience between Argentina and Europe.” However, it is not only the redundancy of the content at the first Milei Conference that makes clear that this is, rather, classic lobbying work. The aim is to popularize right-wing libertarian ideology and bring forces together. In an interview with Cicero, Petry declared in early December 2025: “The plan is to develop a catalog of measures that the next conservative government - whatever its configuration - can use from day one to reduce bureaucracy.”

Milei as a “metaphor”

On the institute’s website it is stated that Milei has “provided the project of economic deregulation with a metaphor of great international impact through the chainsaw.” At the Schkeuditz conference, the chainsaw is also present - on stage, in brochures, and on stickers. Milei’s name, it seems, also draws attention in Germany. People who attended the conference comment that the Argentine president was the one who initially led them to take an interest in libertarian ideology. It is notable that there are no Latin American or Argentine participants at the conference; the only exception is a right-wing libertarian activist from Argentina who runs the Instagram channel “Milei auf Deutsch” (Milei in German) and describes the Argentine head of state as a “beacon of freedom.”

Apparently, Milei himself had better plans for the day of the conference. Instead of participating in the conference in Saxony, he traveled to Spain. In the capital, Madrid, he met with the leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal. Vox is a key actor in the articulations of the far right in Spain and Latin America. Later, the German economist Bagus presented the Argentine president, on behalf of the Mises Institute, with the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Prize at the Madrid Economic Forum.

Right-wing populism Rothbard-style

The explanation states that Milei follows the “double strike strategy” of the right-wing libertarian Murray Rothbard. This would consist of the “ideological strike,” meaning the dissemination of libertarian economic ideology and the strengthening of an elite of leaders, and the “populist strike,” meaning a “message aimed at the masses.” It was Rothbard who strongly advocated the union of libertarian and far-right economic demagoguery, as can be read in his 1992 essay “Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement.”

Although it was not a central element of the program, far-right slogans were also voiced in Schkeuditz. People of Ukrainian origin living in Germany were accused of being in the country solely to take advantage of the welfare system. Muslims were portrayed as “unintegrable.” Added to this were right-wing conspiratorial narratives, for example insinuating that Germany was a corporation or denying human-caused climate change.

The Milei Institute has set out to unite right-wing libertarian forces in the German-speaking region. In doing so, they are presenting themselves for the first time under a radical brand connected to international networks. The name “Milei” serves above all to attract attention. It remains to be seen whether this succeeds and whether the forces gathered in the institute will be able to become a relevant voice in political discourse beyond their own echo chamber.

Redaction: Ute Löhning, Translation: Andrea Dip