PT publishes resolution against BC autonomy – 02/16/2023 – Market

The national directory of the Workers’ Party released a resolution in which it reaffirms its opposition to the autonomy of the Central Bank (BC). The text also says that the drop in interest rates practiced by the Central Bank and the review of inflation targets are essential.

The document was released this Thursday morning (16), hours before the meeting of the National Monetary Council (CMN), scheduled to start at 3 pm. It takes place in the midst of a series of attacks by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government on the current monetary policy.

The CMN is the collegiate body responsible for defining the inflation target to be pursued by the BC in carrying out its interest rate policy. It is made up of the Ministers of Finance, Fernando Haddad, and of Planning and Budget, Simone Tebet, in addition to BC President Roberto Campos Neto.

In its original version, which the Sheet had access, the document made a laudatory mention of the role of Minister Fernando Haddad at the head of the Treasury.

“Rightly, President Lula’s government, through its Ministry of Finance, led by Fernando Haddad, has guided the country’s essential discussion of tax reform and the new fiscal framework, after the tragedy of the so-called spending ceiling, which was never respected and only served as a smokescreen to justify the disregard for the needs of the Brazilian people, while rentism profits through the high interest rate policy of the Central Bank, which has not controlled inflation and prevents the construction of an investment trajectory for the country’s development “, it said.

In the final version, the paragraph was deleted, without Haddad’s name returning to the text. In its place came more severe criticism of the monetary policy conducted by the Central Bank.

In the current version, written after inclusion of amendments presented during the party’s national directory meeting this week, it is highlighted that the party benches must propose to the National Congress the summoning of Campos Neto to discuss monetary policy.

“The government program presented by President Lula, approved at the polls and constantly reiterated by the President himself, provides for an economic policy that allows for economic growth, which is why it is essential to lower interest rates practiced by the Central Bank as well as to review targets of inflation”, says the document.

“Reputed economists strongly question this policy of high interest rates and, even more: they criticize the frivolous and untruthful way of justifying this policy of high interest rates by brandishing it with the fear of inflation, which is known to be not demand inflation, but rather has to do with with the consequences of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine”, continues the text.

“Our benches must propose to the National Congress the summoning of the president of the Central Bank to come and debate this policy, as provided for in the law that approved the autonomy of the Central Bank of 2019; autonomy against which the PT has always positioned itself against, for through its instances and the vote of the benches in Congress.”

Today, critical of the Central Bank’s autonomy, President Lula personally presented a project to the National Constituent Assembly that proposed the creation of an autonomous body to regulate currency and credit —precisely the role of the Central Bank.