Campos Neto avoids raids with Lula, but defends BC autonomy – 10/03/2023 – Market

By avoiding clashes with the Lula government, the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, was called a diplomat by journalist Pedro Bial, in an interview shown in the early hours of this Tuesday (3) on TV Globo.

“Obviously we won’t think the same about everything, but we are well aligned”, he said about the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad. “Time is the best medicine. Time passes and the person looks and says: he’s really trying to help.”

According to him, several people contributed to building this relationship. Campos Neto said he knew that Haddad’s work was complex. “It’s difficult to cut spending,” he said, despite reinforcing that this is a necessary measure.

After meeting with President Lula last week, Campos Neto seeks to build a relationship of trust with the government.

In the interview, he said that he spoke with Lula on only two occasions: at the end of 2022, before the presidential inauguration, and last week.

“Lula spends more time paying attention to what you say and has more patience for conversations”, he analyzed, comparing the meeting with the current president with those he held with Jair Bolsonaro (PL). “Bolsonaro was faster. I knew I would have three minutes with him, after three minutes he would become more dispersed.”

In the last conversation with Lula, the president of the Central Bank preferred to listen more than talk – unlike the first meeting. According to him, it is possible that new dialogues will take place, but nothing has been decided.

Despite the diplomatic relationship, Campos Neto once again defended the autonomy of the Central Bank so that technical work can be carried out independent of political cycles, which, in his view, is better in the long term for the economy.

“We drive looking ahead”, he compared about the different times between economics and politics.

Campos Neto denied his intention to resign from his position before the end of his term in 2024, despite receiving political pressure. And he also guaranteed that he does not intend to run for any position when he leaves the presidency of the BC.

“In the autonomy project, I had asked to include a clause saying that the president of the Central Bank cannot be a candidate for anything for two years after his departure. Precisely so as not to have any type of link between technical work and a desire to participate government and have to do something different.”