Renan says the opposition didn't want to vote on the budget.
According to the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL), the opinion issued by Supreme Court Justice Luis Fux does not prevent the analysis of matters not related to presidential vetoes; "That wasn't the obstacle. The obstacle was that the opposition didn't want to vote," he said.
Marcos Chagas
Reporter from Agência Brasil
Brasilia – The approval of the new rules for distributing the State Participation Fund (FPE) will be one of the priorities on the parliamentary agenda. The president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL), said, however, that the "absolute priority" of Congress is to review the 2013 Federal Budget, with a session scheduled for Tuesday the 19th.
"It is important to mobilize all efforts to vote on the new FPE rules," said Calheiros. Regarding the Budget, he reiterated that the opinion issued by the Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Luis Fux, does not prevent the analysis of matters that are not linked to presidential vetoes.
"That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the opposition didn't want to vote. And budget votes on weekends are usually done by agreement, by consensus, by understanding," said the Senate president.
Opposition and allied parliamentarians left the leaders' meeting on Tuesday, the 5th, arguing that they could not vote on the Budget before the presidential vetoes. According to them, Minister Fux's order blocked the entire legislative agenda and forced Congress to vote on the more than 3 vetoes before analyzing any other matter.
Edited by: Davi Oliveira