President Luiz Inácio Lula da SilvaEVARISTO SA / AFP
Published 04/23/2024 09:00 | Updated 04/23/2024 09:01
The National Congress holds a joint session this Wednesday, 24th, to analyze matters vetoed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. All vetoes being processed in the Legislature will be on the agenda, according to the government leader in Congress, Randolfe Rodrigues (no party-AP). The analysis of some, however, may be postponed if there is no agreement to include them in the joint vote, using the paper ballot. There are 32 vetoes pending voting by parliamentarians.
Committee amendments
In the 2024 Annual Budget Law (LOA), Lula vetoed R$5.6 billion of commission amendments, which were boosted by Congress this year. Even with the treasury, the amount is still a record, R$11 billion.
This type of parliamentary amendment, which does not have mandatory payment, became the main asset of the leadership of the Chamber and Senate in the internal political articulation of the Legislature after the end of the secret budget. The scheme, revealed by Estadão, consisted of passing on rapporteur amendments without transparency and was declared unconstitutional by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) at the end of 2022.
After the veto of part of the commission’s amendments displeased Congress, the Minister of Planning, Simone Tebet, went so far as to say that the government would find a way to recover this amount. The Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, also stated that the Executive was seeking alternatives.
On the 9th, the Chamber approved a “jabuti” – a matter unrelated to the main content of a legislative proposal – which changed the fiscal framework to allow the government to advance R$15 billion in expenses. In theory, the greater space for spending could facilitate the recomposition of committee amendments. This “jabuti” entered the PL that deals with DPVAT and should also be voted on this same Wednesday, before the Congress session, precisely to open this credit and enable the resumption of part of these amendments.
As Estadão/Broadcast also showed on the 9th, the government’s negotiation is to recover around R$3 billion of the R$5.6 billion vetoed from the commission amendments.
Even so, as Estadão found, government allies fear that the Centrão’s “change” to the Planalto Palace after the attacks by the President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), on the Minister of the Institutional Relations Secretariat, Alexandre Padilha, be given in the analysis of presidential vetoes, especially in the area of committee amendments.
Commitment calendar
In this year’s Budget Guidelines Law (LDO), Lula’s main veto was the calendar for commitment and payment of mandatory amendments (mandatory payment).
The deputies and senators had approved a device that forced the government to separate resources to pay for these amendments in the first half of the year and also to carry out the expenditure in the case of “fund to fund” transfers linked to health and social assistance.
In March, the government promised Congress to pay around R$14.5 billion in tax amendments by June 30, before the municipal elections, in exchange for maintaining the vetoed section in the LDO. But parliamentarians fear that Planalto will not comply with the agreement, which could lead to the veto being overturned.
The Executive proposed a political agreement instead of an obligation in law because it did not want to have an absolute commitment to make payments – which will happen if the veto is overturned – because the availability of resources depends on the pace of tax collection.
Parliamentary amendments are resources in the federal government’s Budget that can be directed to the electoral strongholds of deputies and senators to, for example, carry out works and implement public policies. In a year of municipal elections, such as 2024, parliamentarians often use this prerogative to try to boost candidacies from allies for city halls and council chambers.
In the LDO, there is also a veto in a section that shielded resources allocated to the Rural Insurance Premium Subsidy Program (PSR) from contingencies; and also in the allocation of R$18 billion from the Union to Fundeb, a fund that pays for basic education.
See other vetoes that could be voted on this week:
PL of the outings
With the veto, Lula allowed “outings” for prisoners to visit their families. The president’s decision generated a reaction from the Parliamentary Public Security Front, known as the “bullet bench”, and other groups in Congress.
Luggage
The 2022 veto made by then-president Jair Bolsonaro of a bill that resumed free baggage check-in remains on Congress’ agenda. In all the last joint sessions, there was no agreement, and therefore the analysis of the proposal has been postponed.
PL for the taxation of offshore funds
President Lula decided to veto a section of the offshore funds taxation law, specifically the one that defines what a stock exchange is for the purposes of minimum investments in equity investment funds. In the veto message, the head of government stated that the text approved by Congress “excessively restricts the definition”, as “only multilateral centralized negotiation systems” were covered, excluding bilateral centralized negotiation systems.
Land regularization in the Amazon
Lula vetoed several sections of the bill granting land regularization in the Amazon. He claimed that the proposal “incurs a defect of unconstitutionality in that it proposes to extinguish termination clauses of contracts that have been resolved.”
One of the vetoed sections provided for the end of the resolutive conditions for settlement titles issued until June 25, 2009. This extinction would benefit landowners from up to 15 fiscal modules with property registered in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and without the registration of workers in situation analogous to slavery
Bidding law
One of President Lula’s vetoes to the project that changed the Tender Law affects special engineering services worth more than R$1.5 million. According to the text approved in Congress, bidding of this type must always take place in closed dispute mode. The government understood, however, that this decision “contravenes the public interest” due to the prohibition of open dispute mode.
Another vetoed item allowed that, in the event of termination of the contract of the winner of a bid, a third party, hired directly or in a new bid, could take advantage of any outstanding balance included in committed expenses or in unprocessed unpaid balances.
An excerpt was also vetoed that stipulates that outstanding payments linked to multi-year contracts would not be automatically canceled.
Flexibility in pesticide registration
Congress must also analyze President Lula’s partial veto of the law that relaxes the rules for the registration of pesticides in the country. The president vetoed the section that ends the tripartite regulatory model for registration, preventing the Ministry of Agriculture from concentrating power for this type of decision.
Another section vetoed by Lula was the one that exempted companies from placing warnings on their packaging stating that the container could not be reused.
