Senate approves PEC dos Precatório in two rounds; text back to Chamber

On Thursday (2), the Federal Senate approved the text of the PEC of Precatório, by 61 votes to 10. The agenda needed at least 49 votes. The vote in the first round was a little earlier, and had 64 votes in favor and 13 against, in addition to 2 abstentions.

Now, the matter needs to go back to the Chamber – where it needs 308 votes –, as its text was changed by the senators.

The project, which makes room in the 2022 Budget for Auxílio Brasil, was approved on Tuesday (30) at the Committee on Constitution and Justice (CCJ), by 16 votes to 10. In this phase, 14 favorable votes were needed.

The text of the PEC dos Precatórios has as its backbone to pay half of the value of the Union’s judicial debts next year, and to change the calculation of the spending ceiling, which would open up R$106 billion.

Text changes

In search of greater support for the approval of the PEC dos Precatório in the plenary of the Senate, the rapporteur of the text, senator Fernando Bezerra (MDB-PE), conceded in some more points of the proposal. Among the main changes in the new opinion is the linking of all open fiscal space with the sub-ceiling for the payment of court orders to Auxílio Brasil and Social Security.

The measure will be applied annually to “surplus” resources by the limit on the payment of court orders until 2026. That is, for 5 years, the new social program and the security spending have a source of funding guaranteed by the limit on the payment of court orders.

The purpose is to ensure that funds cannot be used for other expenses, such as rapporteur amendments. “Thus, all the effort made by the National Congress in the search for resources will be linked to the most urgent social purposes in this moment of crisis”, says the text.

Last week, Bezerra had already brought changes in relation to the text that came from the Chamber, such as ensuring that all open space in the budget is linked to the payment of social assistance. In addition, it established the payment of R$ 400 from Auxílio Brasil as permanent.

Then, to facilitate approval by the Senate Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ), where the text was approved on Tuesday (30), it removed the Fundef (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Elementary Education and the Valorization of Teaching) from the spending ceiling.

These judicial debts with the states amount to around R$16 billion. Under the PEC, 40% of this amount will have to be paid in the first year.

Another important change was putting food court orders on the priority list for payment.

On the priority list for payments are those who will receive smaller amounts, up to R$ 66,000, people aged 60 or over and people with disabilities.

(With information from Anna Russi and Bia Gurgel / text published by Ligia Tuon)