Acting President and Minister of Industry, Trade and Services, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), said on Monday (24/11) that the government may issue a new temporary measure to extend the Brasil Soberano programme. The so-called “Tariff Member” helps companies affected by the additional tariffs that the United States applies to Brazil, but they expire on December 11, and there is still no possibility of a vote in Congress.
“Maybe the legal experts will evaluate it by the end of December,” Alkmene said. “But if not at the end of December, it will be at the beginning of January. But ideally, we will already get approval.”
The outlook is not good for the government in Congress, given the rapid deterioration of the relationship between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) and the President of the Senate, Davi Alcolombre (Uniao-AP), due to the dispute over the nomination to the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
There is also an open crisis in the relationship between the leader of the Workers’ Party, Lindbergh Farias (RJ), and the president of the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), and a conflict with the opposition that will insist on an amnesty agenda after the arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
For Alkmene, this whole situation is “non-interventionist.” He said: “There is one thing about the actions of the judiciary, and another thing is the executive branch, which has different time requirements. The differences are natural, and the important thing is to have a dialogue.”
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The Brazilian Sovereign MP was deployed by Lula’s government in response to the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump. It opened a credit line worth R$30 billion to exporters with a 5% or more impact on exports to the United States of America, which also serves the suppliers of these producers.
Representative for the electricity sector
Al-Kamine also said on Monday that the temporary measure setting new rules for the electricity sector (MP 1304) will be approved and published in the Official Gazette on Tuesday (25/11). The presidency has until the end of the day to ratify the proposal, but President Lula is traveling to Mozambique and is supposed to arrive in Brazil in the early hours of Tuesday.
The representative for the electricity sector was approved in October by Congress. It envisages containing the increase in energy tariffs due to subsidies and mandatory contracting of certain sources, but also addresses opening the free energy market to all consumers and budgeting the Energy Development Account (CDE), a fund that finances important government initiatives, such as the Social Electricity Tariff and the Light for All programme.