The Minister of the Presidency’s Institutional Relations Secretariat, Alexandre Padilha, assured this Tuesday (10) that the processing of the fiscal adjustment measures presented by the government to the National Congress should not suffer delays, even after the hospitalization of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who underwent surgery to drain a bruise in the brain during the early hours of the morning. 
“The procedure that President Lula underwent this morning, the fact that he was hospitalized, does not prevent this pace, this commitment to voting, involving the entire government, from continuing so that we can conclude the year with these rules of the fiscal framework consolidated, contributing to the economic growth of our country”, said the minister, in an interview with journalists during his participation in a meeting of the Governors’ Forum, in Brasília.
Even before Lula’s hospitalization, the government was already mobilizing to prevent a boycott of the vote on these measures, considered a priority, after a decision by Minister Flávio Dino, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), had rejected an appeal from the Attorney General’s Office which requested changes to the Court’s decision that released payment for parliamentary amendments. The changes requested by the AGU aimed to reduce some transparency requirements regarding the application of these resources.
After the court decision handed down by Dino, an emergency meeting was called by Lula with the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), on Monday afternoon (9), at Palácio do Planalto.
“We clarified to the presidents of both Houses what interpretation the AGU made of the STF minister’s latest decisions and that an enforceable opinion is coming from the AGU, placing this interpretation. This allows the ministries to continue implementing the amendments”, explained Padilha.
The government’s guidance, passed on to the presidents of the Legislative Branch, according to Padilha, is to speed up the execution of the amendments.
“We want these resources to be implemented. They are works, they are programs at federal universities, programs in the health sector, a volume of resources that were pointed out by parliamentarians, but they are important programs, there are resources there to reduce queues for surgeries and exams in the Ministry of Health, works that are in progress”, he argued. In the minister’s assessment, the execution of the budgetary resources for the amendments improves “the environment for these votes even further”.
Late this Tuesday afternoon, the president of the Chamber informed that he will appoint rapporteurs for two of the spending cut projects, which have already had approved emergency procedureand that the voting schedule for the next two weeks will take place from Monday to Friday, to complete the voting calendar, which also includes the Annual Budget Bill, the Budget Guidelines Law and other matters, such as the regulation of tax reform.
Understand
Last week, the STF authorized the resumption of payment for parliamentary amendments, which had been suspended since August. To this end, ministers defined a series of rules based on transparency and traceability criteria.
Then, the AGU asked Dino to reduce the requirements to release the resources, reconsidering points that deal with the approval of a work plan, nominal identification of parliamentarians and the growth in the total volume of amendments for 2025.
In the decision, Dino compared the case with the bills currently being processed in the Legislature, which are “transparent and traceable”. And he justified that “there is no constitutional, legal or logical basis for, precisely when it comes to the application of public money, there to be an unusual concealment procedure”.
Lula’s health
President Lula was subjected, in the early hours of this Tuesday (10), at the Hospital Sírio-Libanês, in São Paulo, to a trepanation for hematoma drainage. The surgery was uneventful. The president is well and is being monitored in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed.
According to a bulletin released by the hospital, Lula was at the Brasília unit of Sírio-Libanês last night, for an imaging test, after feeling a headache. The trip to the hospital took place shortly after his meeting with Lira, Pacheco and ministers Alexandre Padilha (Institutional Relations) and Rui Costa (Civil House), to discuss the payment of the amendments.
The MRI showed intracranial hemorrhage, resulting from the domestic accident suffered on October 19.
The president was transferred to the hospital unit in São Paulo, where he underwent the surgical procedure. According to the measured team responsible for the surgery, the intracranial hemorrhage detected in the president did not compromise any brain function.
