Targeted throughout 2024, the execution of parliamentary amendments was a source of discord within the government () and fueled a split between the Chamber and Senate on the penultimate day of the year.
The consequence of the back-and-forth of letters, decisions and opinions is that the more than R$4 billion in amendments that parliamentarians hoped to see released in 2024 threaten to never get off the ground.
To compensate, Lula’s assistants are forging an agreement with parliamentarians so that the resources will reinforce the cash flow of these funds next year — the model is not yet ready.
On the afternoon of this Monday (30), the (Advocacy General of the Union) announced a decision the day before by Minister Flávio Dino, of the (Supreme Federal Court).
Opting for a cautious interpretation, as described in the opinion itself, the body recommended non-payment until clarification of what it identified as “reasonable doubt”. Subsequently, he asked the STF for clarification on the decision.
The AGU analysis was classified as restrictive by technicians from ministries and the Palácio do Planalto, who were working with the possibility of releasing R$ 1.7 billion in commission amendments that had been committed by December 23rd – which, in the assessment of them, would be aligned with Dino’s decision.
Under the command of , the SRI (Secretariat for Institutional Relations) published the total value of these amendments and the ministries covered, without, however, suggesting non-compliance with the AGU’s opinion.
Following the decision of the STF minister, the text of the Attorney General also pointed to the nullity of the letter in which 17 party leaders, including PT member Odair Cunha (MG), jointly assumed the paternity of commission amendments totaling R $4.2 billion.
Behind the scenes, party leaders claim that there is coordinated action between Dino, who was Lula’s minister, and the government to aggressively reduce the weight of parliamentary amendments in the federal budget. The same suspicion led the PT member to receive the presidents of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), and the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), at the Palácio do Planalto to deny any type of agreement.
Congress is on recess and will only return to work in February, when retaliation may occur in votes of interest to the government
The AGU’s opinion was conceived amid rumors that Dino would make an even stricter decision on the execution of the budget.
In some ministries, there was even discussion of canceling the amendments. At the end of the afternoon, the guidance was only to suspend until further decision by the STF.
Also on Monday afternoon, the Senate Attorney’s Office presented an appeal defending the legality of the committee’s amendments. Its text is the result of a discomfort that occurred when, in a petition to the STF, the Chamber argued that senators adopted the same practices as deputies to identify the authors of committee amendments.
“Hence the strangeness that it is only participating at this moment in institutional dialogue with the Supreme Court, for the purposes of improving the budgetary process of parliamentary amendments, when the competence for the matter lies with the National Congress, when the Senate of the Republic adopted a rigorous procedure identical to that of the Chamber of Deputies and when both Houses limited themselves to following previous technical guidelines from the Executive Branch”, he stated.
The petition was forwarded to the STF five days after the cancellation of a Senate meeting called with the aim of legitimizing its committee amendments.
At the meeting of the Regional Development Commission, the amendments sponsored by House leaders would be approved. It was an attempt to validate the list and dispel the idea that it had been defined without prior approval from the Senate committees.
But, according to reports, the collegiate meeting was canceled at the request of deputies to strengthen the argument that the two legislative houses adopted a common strategy.
However, five days later, the Chamber’s lawyers questioned the Senate’s absence in the “dialogue” with the Judiciary. The allegation bothered senators. And the Senate’s amendments ended up blocked.
This Monday, in its petition, the Senate recalled that its leaders individually assumed the paternity of the amendments. In the case of the Chamber, 17 leaders were collectively responsible for each of them.
“In the 2nd phase of individualization of amendments, that is, in the discrimination of the recipient entities, given the requirement to affix the name and code of the requesting parliamentarian, it is clear that for each specific destination the Federal Senate included the requesting senator”, he states .
The House’s lawyers asked for their amendments to be authorized, committing, if necessary, to submit them for future approval by the committees.
In , Dino said that the senators are “one step above” on the issue of transparency, but that they also acted outside the law by defining committee amendments through the endorsement of party leaders and not by these committees.
