2023-09-26 19:11:24
© Reuters “No one is going to give the economy a break here,” says Lula
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said this Tuesday (September 26, 2023) that his 3rd government gained credibility with the National Congress by having dialogued and fulfilled promises made during negotiations. He also praised the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, for having “serenity in victories and defeats” and said that he will not give any “hobby” to the economy.
“Here, no one is going to give up on the economy. Here we are not going to invent, we are going to do what needs to be done. Although we want to treat everyone with great respect, it is the workers, those most in need, who will receive special attention,” he said.
Lula spoke at the end of the launch ceremony of the National Strategy for the Development of the Economic-Industrial Health Complex. The federal government estimates investing R$42 billion by 2026 to encourage the national production of priority items for the SUS (Unified Health System) .
During his speech, Lula said that Brazilians need to “learn to like Brazil” and that the “mutt complex made Brazil smaller in many historical moments”.
The president also listed the approval of the so-called PEC Fura-teto, still in 2022, before, therefore, the start of his term, and the approval of the tax reform in the Chamber as examples of credibility. The 1st proposed amendment to the Constitution allowed the current government to spend around R$170 billion above the spending ceiling limit in force at the time.
“The first thing was to try to create credibility with Congress, so much so that we managed to approve a PEC that gave us governability even before the government began. It was a sui generis fact in the history of humanity. The approval of a PEC by a supposedly opposition majority, approving a PEC to give governability to my government”, he said.
The president also said that he is willing to talk to all political parties, even those in opposition that did not give in to dialogue. “Even if we talk to ourselves. Even deaf ears keep what we say,” he said.
Government purchases
When praising the expansion of the health industry in the country, Lula mentioned the issue of government purchases from the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde) and said that Brazil will not give up on preserving the mechanism in the negotiation for the conclusion of the agreement between Mercosur and the European Union.
“We want to close the agreement with the European Union, but we will not deliver government purchases. It’s the chance we have for our industry to grow. Whoever has a market doesn’t have to have a problem. We are going to produce what we are going to consume here,” she said.
For the federal government, Brazil’s dependence on other countries to obtain medicines and medical supplies “makes the SUS vulnerable to the foreign market, making it difficult to acquire essential supplies”, according to a document from the Ministry of Health.
The issue of government purchases is the main obstacle for Brazil in the negotiations to close the free trade agreement between the 2 blocs.
Lula rejects the idea of wide opening of the government procurement market to Europeans. The proposal, which was under discussion until the beginning of 2023, had been made in 2019 by the team of then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Mercosur and the EU reached a pre-agreement, but negotiations were suspended due to the pandemic.
In March, the Europeans sent new demands to the South American bloc, including the opening of government purchases. Lula, however, was opposed, and Brazil led the construction of a response to the Europeans, sent in August.
#give #economy #break #Lula #Poder360