Lula was advised to talk to Campos Neto to ‘change his opinion’ about the BC president, say interlocutors

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The president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, and the president of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a montage Reuters/Arte g1 After a troubled year, with war declared by President Lula at the beginning of the year, the PT and the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, are ending 2023 with a peaceful relationship and even with jokes made by the head of the Executive. The change, according to assistants, occurred for two reasons. The first, of course, is because the BC started to reduce interest rates. The second, because Lula decided to talk to Campos Neto. An interlocutor of the president of the Central Bank used to tell the President of the Republic’s team that he would change his opinion about Campos Neto the day he decided to receive him and talk about the economy and even the social area. “If he receives Roberto Campos Neto, he will change his opinion,” said the interlocutor to Lula’s ministers, who today recognize that the government was wrong in trying to isolate the BC president. According to ministers, Lula and his team’s assessment of the BC president is that he was at the service of Bolsonarism and that he worked against the PT government. Lula’s ministers and leaders even refused requests for conversations with Campos Neto at the beginning of the year. “I’m not going to waste my time welcoming the president of the BC, he has a side and he shows it,” a leader told the blog during the year. Today, he admits that he made an error in judgment. At a meeting at Palácio do Planalto, this second semester, Lula even joked that government meetings now even included the participation of the president of the Central Bank, drawing laughter from those present. Campos Neto ended the year by participating in a barbecue promoted by the President of the Republic at Granja do Torto. Within the government, Campos Neto always had the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, as his main interlocutor, which did not prevent the head of the economic team from criticizing the Central Bank for taking so long to reduce the interest rate. By the way, the improvement in the relationship between Lula and Campos Neto does not change the president’s opinion that the Central Bank took too long to cut the interest rate. The PT member hopes that the BC will continue reducing interest rates throughout 2024, but, in the market, the bet is that it will stop the cycle of cutting the Selic rate when it is around 9% per year.

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