Haddad criticizes PEC 65, which grants greater autonomy to the Central Bank: "it makes no sense"

247 - Finance Minister Fernando Haddad expressed concern on Wednesday (3) about a bill that gives the Legislature the power to dismiss directors of the Central Bank, arguing that there is no reason for the measure. The information is from Reuters. 

"I view this with concern because it wasn't discussed with us, with the government in general, and I imagine not even with the Central Bank," he said in an interview with journalists at the Finance Ministry headquarters, adding that he had exchanged messages with the president of the Central Bank, Gabriel Galípolo, about the "inappropriateness" of the topic.

"I see no reason for this project, nor any reason for it to move forward."

The bill currently being debated in the Chamber of Deputies establishes that directors of the regulatory agency may be dismissed by a decision of the National Congress "when the conduct of the Central Bank's activities is incompatible with national interests."

The project was presented in 2021, but this week a request was filed for expedited processing of the text.

The minister argued that the Central Bank should obtain administrative autonomy, but without becoming a private legal entity, as proposed by Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 65 of 2023.

"I think the Central Bank needs to have its own budget to cover expenses that it currently lacks, including strengthening the regulatory side. The Central Bank has authorized countless financial institutions that are not being supervised, which is serious from the point of view of the scams that are emerging. And there's the PIX infrastructure. These are two things that deserve a lot of attention and support from the economic area," said Haddad.

The Central Bank must remain within the public sector, he argued. "A public service, turning to private law? For what purpose, to circumvent the public service salary cap? It makes no sense. We are already going quite far in the right direction, but we are not going to turn this institutional agenda into a corporate agenda," said the minister.

In the interview, Haddad said he did not want to imagine that the parliamentarians' initiative was related to the negotiations for the sale of Banco Master's assets to BRB, which is currently under evaluation by the Central Bank, emphasizing that the decision on the negotiation should be made from a technical point of view.

When questioned about the negotiations surrounding the trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, the minister said he was very confident of a positive outcome and that he expected the negotiations to be concluded by the end of the year.