ARGENTINA’S government has struck a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refinance a $45 billion (£34bn) debt.

President Alberto Fernandez faces an uphill struggle to push the unpopular deal through Congress, since it instructs Buenos Aires to slash energy subsidies which will mean price rises of up to 150 per cent in household energy bills.

Ally Maximo Kirchner — son of former presidents Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez, the latter of whom is still vice-president — resigned as head of the parliamentary coalition supporting the government on January 31 in protest against the IMF’s terms, and many government MPs say the debt is “unpayable.”

Legislation endorsing the agreement will be debated by a parliamentary committee beginning on Monday.

The Communist Party of Argentina said the government should refuse a “traditional adjustment plan” and that the debt was obtained illegally anyway by the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration. The loan programme — the biggest ever granted to a single country — was agreed improperly in the first place, it said, part of a bid by US-controlled institutions to assist in Mr Macri’s re-election.

It called for an investigation into the debt and said Argentina should challenge it “by resorting to popular support and international organisations, making common cause with other debtors and demanding a new international financial engineering.

“There can be no agreement with the IMF at the cost of the suffering of the people,” it declared.

The IMF said the agreement would “strengthen macroeconomic stability and attend to the deep challenges facing Argentina.”