President of UNE deepens criticism against zero deficit – 12/14/2023 – Panel

President of UNE (National Union of Students), Manuella Mirella criticizes the federal government’s zero deficit proposal and states that the target set by Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) is a setback that could delay the country’s growth, especially in education.

The position will be presented at the National Youth Conference, which begins this Thursday (14).

According to her, the “austerity fiscal policy” prevents the government from making strategic investments, such as in education, research and development. “It is necessary to invest in infrastructure at universities, in laboratories, and guarantee student assistance,” she says.

The UNE intends to lobby against the proposal, which is in the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law) approved by the Mixed Budget Committee — the text is pending a vote in the Congress plenary.

The note that will be presented at the conference argues that public universities are still suffering the consequences of funding cuts, “structural scrapping and attacks promoted by governments in the last six years of [Michel] fear and [Jair] Bolsonaro.”

The document says that, given the challenges, the proposal “represents a major setback” for the strengthening of Ifes (Federal Higher Education Institutions).

“The search for zero reveals itself as an error in evaluating the economic strategy, which proposes to begin the herculean task of solving the country’s main problems while maintaining an austerity policy, at a time when Brazil needs to increase spending public and State investments”, he adds.

UNE also demands an increase of R$2.5 billion in the discretionary budget of federal universities

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