The ups and downs of the government's agenda in the congressional cauldron.

Brasilia - Less than a week after the Senate inflicted one of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's (PT) biggest political defeats, the government is picking up the pieces and assessing what remains of its priority agenda with the best chances of approval among deputies and senators.

As the elections approach, the voting window shrinks. Among parliamentarians and political scientists interviewed by NeoFeed , the immediate assessment is that the government may advance with relative ease on matters being processed in the Chamber of Deputies, but will have even more difficulty in passing its agenda in the Senate.

There are some projects — under analysis by the deputies — and provisional measures, more detached from polarizations and political disputes contaminated by the pre-election scenario, that may survive the current turbulence: the end of the 6x1 work schedule ; the package of provisional measures (MPs) to contain fuel prices due to the war in Iran; the Desenrola 2.0 program launched on Monday, May 4th; and the critical minerals bill , whose report was presented today.

“There are some things that escape this dispute. The basic tax rates of the tax reform, for example. These are state agendas that are outside this fight. I believe these things will move forward,” analyzes political scientist and professor Leonardo Barreto. “The government may even pass agenda items that it considers significant, but what will pass is beyond its control.”

According to Barreto, the so-called "state agendas" are more immune to the effects of the political storm imposed by the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), who orchestrated the rejection in plenary of Lula's nominee to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the Attorney General of the Union (AGU), Jorge Messias. Since 1894, no nominee to the Supreme Court had been accepted by the senators.

Still, these proposals may pass because they depend more on coordination between political leaders and sectors of the economy than on the Presidential Palace. The biggest example is the proposed constitutional amendment or bill that reduces the work week in Brazil and eliminates the 6x1 schedule (6 days worked and one day off).

The business sector is conceptually against ending the current work schedule and would even prefer that this discussion be postponed until after the elections, preferably from 2027 onwards. However, with the establishment of the special committee and the political will of the Speaker of the House, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), to expedite the issue, a more favorable environment is created for faster processing.

The countdown to the completion of the committee's work has already begun. And the rapporteur for the proposed amendment to the new work schedule, Representative Leo Prates (Republicanos-BA), is open to discussing with business sectors possible points that could be included in his report, for example.

A source following the negotiations says that the business-oriented parliamentary groups are already willing to discuss incorporating points from the labor reform proposed and approved by the government of former president Michel Temer (MDB) into the final report of the PEC (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) to end the 6x1 work schedule.

Speaking to NeoFeed , Prates said that President Motta is calm regarding the PEC's (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) submission for a vote, and the expectation is that the proposal will go to the plenary session around May 28th. When asked in recent days whether the PEC, at the end of its processing, will be more identified with the right or the left, they have been responding: "the PEC will reflect Hugo Motta's image."

“In the Chamber, the PEC will indeed pass, still in May. No political turbulence will hinder the progress of the end of the 6x1 rule in the special committee. We are confident,” Congressman Rubens Pereira Jr. (PT-MA), deputy leader of the government in the Chamber and one of the pro-government parliamentarians who has been most active in favor of the PEC, told NeoFeed.

Even if it reaches the Senate this year, albeit surrounded by doubts, the end of the 6x1 work schedule still has a viable path to possible approval. Motta's interlocutors have been saying that the episode of Alcolumbre's dispute with the government and the clashes with the Supreme Court are isolated incidents, and in theory there is a favorable context for the proposal: parliamentarians are unlikely to risk voting against such a popular issue in an election year.

Stalled agendas

On another front, proposed laws, such as Redata , a tax incentive program to expand investments in data centers in the country, which was already shrouded in uncertainty and stalled in the Senate, face a lower probability of passing, at least at this time. According to a source following the negotiations surrounding the matter, there is still uncertainty regarding the size of the tax benefits that the Ministry of Finance would agree to grant to companies.

Redata is an issue of interest to the government, which even issued a provisional measure and sent a bill to Congress. However, the provisional measure expired before Congress voted on it in time, and the bill stalled.

Another proposal on the subject, authored by the current Minister José Guimarães (Institutional Relations), who was the government leader in the Chamber of Deputies, was approved by the deputies in plenary session, but is currently stalled in the Senate, awaiting Alcolumbre and his allies.

“Redata, if it goes the way the government wants, remains compromised and is unlikely to move forward. [The bill regulating] Artificial Intelligence also won't pass anytime soon,” analyzes political consultant João Henrique Hummel, the mastermind behind several parliamentary fronts for the productive sector.

The AI project, whose rapporteur is Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB), who also reported on the tax reform in the Chamber, is also progressing with difficulties, and there is even a possibility that the deputy will include points from Redata in his final report.

A senior source within the economic team admits there is "a lot of uncertainty" at the moment regarding the government's priorities in the legislature, but says there is still hope that some projects can be approved this year.

"Anything that would bring political advantages to President Lula will not pass in the Senate at this time. In the Chamber of Deputies, only what is in Hugo Motta's interest will pass," Hummel adds.

According to the consultant, even more so than in the first three years of Lula's current term, the government will have to intensify its negotiations on a project-by-project basis, using the tools at its disposal, such as unblocking 17 appointments to director positions in regulatory agencies.