RENATO MACHADO
BRASILIA, DF (FOLHAPRESS)
The Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, stated this Monday (18) that the federal government will seek to speed up the processing of bills in the National Congress that aim to speed up the granting of environmental licenses for projects.
Rui Costa also defended consortiums of Brazilian companies in the infrastructure area, affected by Operation Lava-Jato, with foreign companies, to be able to carry out larger projects under the Novo PAC.
The minister’s speech about licensing came at a time when he defended the processing of the government’s priority proposals, which will help to boost the New PAC (Growth Acceleration Program).
“Other projects that aim, without losing the commitment to sustainability, the defense of the environment, but to accelerate and modernize environmental legislation, speed up licenses, without obviously losing the main objective, which is the preservation of the environment”, stated the minister.
“Whatever is possible and however possible can be analyzed and released quickly. We will also seek to speed this up in Congress,” he said.
Rui Costa held a presentation of the New PAC this Monday for foreign diplomats at the Itamaraty Palace.
The acting president, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), also participated in the event.
The Minister of the Civil House did not specify which project he was referring to. A proposal is being processed in the Senate that is reported by former Minister of Agriculture Tereza Cristina (PP-MS), one of the exponents of agribusiness.
The project creates a national policy framework for licensing issues, but its general lines are aimed at relaxing the rules and thus speeding up the process. Therefore, it faces resistance from some sectors of the government linked to the Environment.
After the event, the minister also avoided commenting on which project he was referring to. He only stated that the federal government will give preference to proposals already being processed in the National Congress, to honor parliament and also to speed up the process, which would need to be restarted with the sending of a new project by Planalto.
However, the head of the Civil House said that one of the conditions for this would be the construction of a “consensus text”, which would meet the government’s needs and visions.
“What we are looking for, for example, is are you going to duplicate a highway or a railway or build a new railway line in the existing right-of-way of a highway. In other words, this highway has already been licensed.
When it was construction time, it was initially built on a single lane to be doubled in the future”, stated the minister, in an interview with journalists.
“This future has arrived, it is now, but the highway has already been licensed. But, according to the current framework, you need new licensing for the same right-of-way as the highway. It is already an entropy area and therefore the highway already exists and is of the highway’s right-of-way. So in these cases we think we can have a more simplified, more agile process, which brings absolutely no type of compromise with quality and environmental preservation”, he added.
Rui Costa also defended agility for proposals that change the rules for PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships) and public concessions.
The head of the Civil House also stated again that the government will create a green fund, linked to the New PAC, to finance the decarbonization of the economy.
Rui Costa also said that the impeachment process of former president Dilma Rousseff was accompanied by a series of legal actions against Brazilian companies, which ended up undermining the capacity of Brazilian basic industry and infrastructure.
The minister then defended the formation of consortia, particularly with foreign companies, to strengthen the industry in these sectors. However, Rui added that there will not be any kind of stimulus for these companies.
“Many of the companies, the larger ones that participated in major infrastructure works, have their balance sheets compromised due to this institutional process that took place and they need to rehabilitate themselves”, stated the minister.
“And their rehabilitation necessarily involves, in our opinion, the formation of consortiums that can be with national or international companies. We want to encourage international companies to come and, eventually, if they manage to bring with them international financing at a lower interest rate, the project will perform even better”, he added.
The New PAC was launched in August, in a ceremony at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro. The program foresees an investment of R$1.4 trillion until the end of the Lula government, in 2026.
Also present at the event, Geraldo Alckmin once again repeated that Brazil is in a good moment, with satisfactory indices for what he calls the “triple” – exchange rate, inflation and interest rates. He added that the interest rate is still high but on a downward trend.
Alckmin concluded his speech by defending democracy, a topic that became central in discussions after the January 8th coup.
“The most important thing: democracy. Democracy attracts investment, legal security, stable rules for investment,” he stated.
The post Rui Costa defends agility in voting on projects that ‘accelerate’ the granting of environmental licenses appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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