The Brazilian Congress enacted on Wednesday night a Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) that authorizes the next Government to increase social spending to maintain the Bolsa Familia plan and make public investments in 2023.
The initiative concluded in the Senate, with 63 votes in favor and 11 against the so-called transition PEC, after obtaining more than 308 votes in the Chamber of Deputies, meeting the legal requirements for constitutional amendments.
To be enacted by Congress, a PEC must be approved in two rounds in both legislative houses, with the support of at least 308 deputies and 49 senators.
The current enactment of the amendment represents a political victory for president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will take office on Jan. 1, 2023.
For the president-elect and his allies, the measure was considered vital for the future administration to have the necessary resources to fulfill its campaign promises.
The constitutional amendment authorizes the new Government to increase the legal ceiling on public spending by nearly R$170 billion (about US$33 billion) next year.
The Senate maintained the changes established by the Chamber of Deputies to the bill, which reduced the proposal’s validity from two to one year.
The members of Congress also excluded permission for the new Government to borrow from international agencies to invest outside the spending ceiling, a mechanism established in 2016 to avoid increasing public debt.
The amendment also frees funds for the incoming Government to recompose the budgets of ministries that had stopped implementing several programs due to budgetary constraints.