Senate president criticizes government's fiscal adjustment

The president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, criticized the fiscal adjustment proposed by the government, which is still being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies. “It shouldn't even be called 'adjustment'. It involves no State cuts, no cuts in the number of ministries, no State reforms. It does cut labor rights and social security,” he said Wednesday (May 13). Calheiros pointed out that he has always advocated a much deeper change, “not least because a fiscal rebalancing is a pressing need for our economy.”

But he particularly noted that his remark was his “position as a senator rather than as the president of the Senate.”

A member of PMDB, the same party as vice-president Michel Temer's, Calheiros maintained his criticism and said he would do nothing that might “compromise the neutrality expected from the president of the Congress” (in Brazil, the president of the Senate also presides over the Congress, which consists of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies).

Translated by Mayra Borges