The last card up Congress's sleeve to approve the (now) PEC of Pix.

Brasilia — After 2.5 years of much back and forth, the National Congress has a new card to play in order to finally get the proposed amendment to the Constitution regarding the financial and administrative autonomy of the Central Bank approved in the Senate plenary: using Pix in the Constitution as a strategy to overcome the government's persistent resistance so far, amidst conflicts with the United States.

The strategy of rapporteur Plínio Valério (PSDB-AM), parliamentarians who support the PEC, and even BC employees favorable to the text, has been transforming the proposal into the "Pix PEC". The PEC stipulates that the regulation and operation of Pix will be the exclusive responsibility of the BC.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) himself began to more openly defend the payment method in response to recent attacks by US President Donald Trump, who accuses Pix of being used by criminal organizations such as PCC and Comando Vermelho. With these conflicts, the Planalto Palace itself began to use Pix as an instrument of national sovereignty.

“I think Trump’s statement and Lula’s euphoria in defending Pix will at least help the PEC move forward,” Valério told NeoFeed . “I’m taking advantage of this Pix mechanism. We have to go to the vote and we can’t hold it back any longer, it’s now or never.”

“What we perceive is that we have a favorable scenario. The government will not have the courage to go against Pix. Pix is very much in the spotlight and was developed by technicians from the Central Bank,” says Thiago Cavalcanti, president of the National Association of Auditors of the Central Bank (ANBCB). “It has become the Pix Constitutional Amendment. It's not just the Central Bank's Constitutional Amendment anymore.”

After significant pressure from the Central Bank's own president, Gabriel Galípolo, some employees, and former presidents and directors of the institution, as reported by NeoFeed , the Senate's Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) finally approved the PEC (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) this Wednesday, June 10th, in a symbolic vote, without any dissenting votes—not even from government supporters. The PEC now goes to the plenary session.

A source from the economic team told NeoFeed that the discourse surrounding the "Pix Amendment" is being seen as a clear attempt by Congress to piggyback on a topic of "public appeal." And that, in theory, there would be no concrete use or technical justification for linking Pix to the Constitution.

Throughout the entire process of the proposed constitutional amendment so far, the government has raised several objections to the text. The Attorney General's Office (AGU) even proposed that the Central Bank become a special type of public entity – currently, it is an autonomous agency. The rapporteur accepted the proposal, but the Executive branch continued to postpone the discussion in the Senate. Furthermore, the issue has been heavily criticized by the Workers' Party (PT), which has reservations about the Central Bank's autonomy model.

The most recent version of the report, presented in April, proposes, in addition to the financial, operational, and budgetary autonomy of the Central Bank, that the limit on the institution's expenses in a given year cannot exceed the value of the previous year, adjusted for inflation (IPCA) plus 2.5%.

Today, during the CCJ vote, there was no opposition from government supporters, but no agreement was reached for a plenary vote on the same day.

Despite approval in the CCJ (Committee on Constitution, Justice and Citizenship), the government's base gained more time. The government leader in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), conveyed a request from the Minister of Finance, Dario Durigan, to postpone the plenary vote for at least another week. The Finance Ministry argues that, as the text stands, the government is subject to a larger primary deficit every time the Central Bank incurs losses and the Treasury has to cover any resulting shortfalls.

Wagner even submitted an amendment to the PEC text on the evening of Monday, June 8th, in an attempt to solve this problem pointed out by the Treasury. According to him, the amendment was written collaboratively by Ministers Durigan and Bruno Moretti (Planning).

“As long as the Treasury has to contribute to any losses [for the Central Bank], and since the Central Bank is an entity outside the Treasury's control, that could impact the country's primary deficit itself. The Finance Ministry has this concern,” argued Wagner during the CCJ session that approved the PEC.

Besides the government, the PEC (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) also faces resistance from some of the Central Bank's staff. Sinal, the union representing this category of employees, has repeatedly stated its opposition to the proposal and advocates for its rejection.

The decision to schedule the PEC for a plenary vote will now fall to the Senate President, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), who secured a historic victory for President Lula by orchestrating the rejection of Jorge Messias, the Attorney General of the Union, for an open seat on the Supreme Federal Court (STF).

Today, the rapporteur of the PEC (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) reiterated that he has Alcolumbre's word to schedule it immediately for a plenary vote. However, an opposition senator, in favor of the PEC, points out that the government may still try to postpone the vote.