Developments: Chamber will let MP expire – 06/22/2023 – Market

The Chamber of Deputies will let the provisional measure (MP) of Desenrola Brasil (1.176/2023) expire without being analyzed and intends to address the issue through a bill.

The president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), chose as a starting point a project by the leader of the União Brasil bench, Elmar Nascimento (BA), one of his main allies in the House. Lira has already appointed a rapporteur for this project, deputy Alencar Santana (PT-SP).

According to Elmar, the procedure through a bill and not a MP has already been agreed with Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) and the expectation is that the urgency regime and the merits of the proposal —which aims to reduce the number of debtors in the country—be approved even before the recess in the second half of July.

Alencar Santana said that he has not yet looked into the measure and that he will address the issue and deadlines as soon as Lira returns from her trip abroad, in early July.

Desenrola Brasil is a campaign promise by President Lula (PT), who edited the MP with the rules at the beginning of the month.

It is divided into track 1, restricted to citizens who have debts of up to R$5,000 and who earn up to two minimum wages (R$2,640), and track 2, for people with bank debts, with the possibility of directly renegotiating with the financial institution.

The renegotiation payment can be made in cash or in up to 60 installments, with interest of 1.99% per month, with the possibility of forgiving debts of up to R$ 100.

Adherence would be via cell phone, on a platform that is still being developed, but all these details will now depend on how the PL will be approved by the Chamber and the Senate (after this phase, Lula may still veto points of the measure).

Elmar’s project, filed in October 2022, institutes the National Program for Renegotiation of Families’ Debts (ReFamília), aimed at families with incomes of up to R$5,000, with a credit forecast of up to R$20,000 per family.

The project also establishes that the National Monetary Council will establish a limit for the charging of interest by credit cards when the customer enters the revolving payment (in which he delays or pays only part of the invoice).

“The remuneratory interest rates charged in the modality mentioned in the caput cannot exceed the limits already stipulated for credit modalities with a similar risk profile, as is already the case with the fees charged on the amount used for the overdraft”, says one of the points of the text.

According to data from the Central Bank, late interest on credit card bills reached the highest level since 2017 in May, 447.7% per year.

The MP will be one more of the Lula government that will “lapse” —that is, cease to be valid for not having been analyzed by Congress within a maximum period of 120 days— due to the government’s problems in building its support base in the Legislative.

Lula has already seen seven provisional measures that he edited expire, and some of them had part of their content absorbed in other proposals in process.

In addition to the fragility of its base in the Chamber, the lack of agreement between Lira and the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), weighs against the processing of the MPs on the rite of processing the measures.

Pacheco defends the constitutional procedure, in which MPs begin to be analyzed in a mixed commission of deputies and senators, and only then go to the plenary sessions of the Chamber and Senate.

Lira defends the exceptionality adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the special commission was suppressed to speed up voting.

In practice, the deputy tries to keep power in his hands, considering that the special commission dilutes the power between the two houses.