NATHALIA GARCIA
BRASILIA, DF (FOLHAPRESS)
A figure present at the Palácio do Planalto under the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, has stopped being a regular visitor to the headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) resumed the presidency position in January of this year.
In the Bolsonaro government, he played an active role as a Planalto advisor, being consulted on topics that even went beyond the economic area. During the Lula government, the commander of the monetary authority became the target of criticism.
Even after the BC’s autonomy, which came into force in February 2021, Campos Neto continued to participate in ministerial meetings of the Bolsonaro government and held dozens of bilateral meetings with the former head of the Executive.
According to a survey carried out by Folha de S.Paulo, there were 17 meetings between the BC president and Bolsonaro in 2021 (after approval of the autonomy law) – five individual meetings, eight with the presence of other authorities and four ministerial meetings, in addition to some ceremonies on the Plateau.
On March 8, 2021, he participated in a meeting that included, in addition to the Brazilian government, Albert Bourla, president of Pfizer. Campos Neto had direct participation as an intermediary in the purchase of vaccines against Covid-19 produced by the pharmaceutical company.
He was even scheduled to participate in the vaccination ceremony in Campinas (SP), on April 29 of that year, an appointment that appears as canceled on his agenda.
In 2022, the election year, individual meetings between Campos Neto and Bolsonaro intensified at the beginning of the year and ceased in May. Between January and March, there were five bilateral meetings (and two more ministerial meetings).
There was also a sixth agreement reached between them, on May 4 of that year, hours before the Copom (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting. On that occasion, the BC board raised the basic interest rate (Selic) by one percentage point, from 11.75% to 12.75% per year.
This agenda became public in an email from Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, which had “confidential” as its title. The meeting was included on the Central Bank’s agenda only later.
In an interview with Veja magazine, published on August 25 of this year, Campos Neto stated that the topic of the meeting was the Safra Plan, a federal government program to encourage agribusiness.
“From time to time, Bolsonaro called me. If President Lula did the same, he would also go. Hours after that meeting with Bolsonaro, in fact, we raised interest rates by one percentage point, which indicates that the BC acted autonomously and so it will continue”, said Campos Neto.
This was not the only meeting between Campos Neto and Bolsonaro on Copom day, shows the Folha de S.Paulo survey. There is also the participation of the president of the BC in a ministerial meeting with the head of the Executive at Palácio do Planalto on the morning of June 15, 2021 – there was also an increase in interest rates on that date (from 3.5% to 4.25% per year). year).
In total, there were 25 meetings at Planalto with Bolsonaro’s presence between February 2021 and May 2022, 11 of which were individual meetings. During the period, there were at least nine ceremonies at the Executive headquarters on Campos Neto’s agenda.
When contacted by the report, the BC said that “the meetings dealt, as is customary in meetings with public agents, with institutional and governmental issues of the moment, without addressing issues private to the Central Bank, and are included in the public agenda.”
Gustavo Loyola, former president of the BC and CEO of Tendências Consultoria, says he sees no problem with the Central Bank president’s contact with the government and considers that this would not affect the autonomy of the monetary authority.
However, he considers that the ideal is for the relationship to be restricted to topics that directly interfere with the institution’s operations, citing public bank policies as an example.
“The president of the Central Bank cannot identify with a government in the sense of being another minister, he loses autonomy. Everything is a matter of dosage”, he states.
“The President of the Republic has every right to want to be informed about the BC. He is ultimately responsible for the country, but he has to have the correct dose of this type of relationship.”
Campos Neto’s proximity to Bolsonar politicians began to be exploited by PT members since the beginning of the current administration to increase the wear and tear on the head of the monetary authority.
In Lula’s eyes, the leader of the municipality went from being a “competent economist” on the eve of the elections to “that citizen” at the end of the first month of government. The president has also declared that the leader is “mindful” and that “he cannot think he owns Brazil.”
To date, Campos Neto and Lula have had a single face-to-face meeting, still during the government transition period, on December 30, 2022, at the hotel where the PT member was staying.
On January 1st of this year, the president of the BC was present at the inauguration ceremony of the head of the Executive. That day, however, it did not go unnoticed among critics that he made a “round trip” between Brasília and São Paulo to participate in the inauguration of Tarcísio de Freitas, former Minister of Infrastructure in the Bolsonaro government, elected governor of São Paulo.
For Alexandre Schwartsman, former director of the BC, it is not “very appropriate” for a Central Bank president to have a very close relationship with the Executive Branch.
“Obviously there has to be a respectful relationship, which is not the case now, much more because of the president of the Republic than the president of the Central Bank”, he states.
“The current government has made it very clear that he (Roberto Campos Neto) is ‘persona non grata’, regardless of having different opinions about economic policy.”
Publicly, Campos Neto says he is available to Lula to talk. “I’m always open to discussing not only with the president, but with any member of the government. Sometimes I have meetings with some ministers, I explain what I’m seeing, what’s happening,” he said in an interview with the Poder360 website.
“Obviously I talk a lot more with Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance), but I am open to talking to President Lula at any time”, he added.
According to Secom (Presidency Communication Secretariat), Lula’s distancing is not a personal issue, but a “disagreement about the interest rate”, and the government’s bridge with Campos Neto has been made by the minister from the farm.
Asked whether the BC president is among those invited to ceremonies held at Planalto, Secom stated that “in all ceremonies and announcements held at Palácio do Planalto, the list of guests is defined by the proposing ministry”.
“It is up to the department responsible for the announcement to forward the list of guests for the Ceremonial of the Presidency of the Republic”, added the text sent by Secom.
Designated as the government’s interlocutor with the head of the monetary authority, the Treasury said that, to date, “it has not held any events at Palácio do Planalto”.
Campos Neto, through his advisors, stated that “whenever invited, he has responded and will respond to invitations to meetings with authorities from the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary”. According to the BC, he did not receive new invitations to meetings with the President of the Republic.
So far, there is no plan for a new face-to-face meeting between Lula and Campos Neto.
The post Campos Neto goes from being a regular on Bolsonaro’s agenda to being a ‘persona non grata’ in Lula’s Planalto appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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