The government reportedly negotiated R$ 1 billion to approve the provisional measure.

247 – With the deadline for approving the Ports Provisional Measure running out, the government tried its last card. According to Folha, the government negotiated the release of more than R$ 1 billion for parliamentary amendments.

The amount was discussed at a meeting between Minister Ideli Salvatti (Institutional Relations) and parliamentary groups and ministers.

The use of parliamentary amendments as bargaining chips is frequently employed by the government to secure votes of interest to it. The release of funds for this purpose, generally for projects in the electoral districts of congressmen, is not mandatory.

Each member of parliament is entitled to R$15 million in amendments. This will be the first release of funds this year. "It's normal to have amendments released. However, it won't happen in the next few days because there isn't enough time to process it."

To avoid losing its validity, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate need to vote on the Ports Provisional Measure by Thursday. Late yesterday evening, the Chamber decided to postpone the vote until today due to a low quorum (252 out of 513 deputies).

The leader of the PMDB in the Chamber, deputy Eduardo Cunha (RJ), author of an agglutinative amendment that made it impossible, last week, to vote on Provisional Measure (MP) 595/2012, known as the Ports MP, said today (13) that he agrees to vote on the matter if the government commits to not vetoing points of the report by Senator Eduardo Braga (PMDB-AM), approved by the special committee that analyzed the proposal.

"Perhaps if the government were to take a position favorable to Senator Eduardo Braga's report, this would facilitate dialogue," said Cunha. "My guidance today, Monday, will be not to vote. Tomorrow [14], we will vote without any kind of obstruction. With guidance for each amendment according to its content," added the PMDB leader.

According to the Planalto Palace, Cunha's amendment breaks the backbone of the provisional measure. The government's objective with the reform is to stimulate competition between private and public ports.

Yesterday, under pressure from Dilma, the PMDB member, who boycotted the meeting with Ideli, met in the evening with members of the government, including Vice President Michel Temer (PMDB).

At the end of the night, the two sides reportedly agreed that the PMDB leader would withdraw from the agenda the text he had drafted, which includes a series of parliamentary amendments contrary to the interests of the Planalto Palace.