President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this Thursday that he may seek to review the autonomy of the Brazilian Central Bank when the mandate of the institution's current president, Roberto Campos Neto, ends.
"I would like to know what all the independence is for. I'm going to wait until this gentleman (Campos Neto) finishes his mandate so that we can make an assessment of what the independent central bank meant," said Lula in an interview with RedeTV!
Asked whether there could be a change in relation to autonomy, the President confirmed. "I think it can, but ... I mean this is irrelevant to me. This is irrelevant, this is not on my agenda. What is on the agenda is the interest rate issue," he said.
Lula has frequently criticized interest rates and the Brazilian Central Bank's independence, claiming that the institution doesn't do more now than when its president was changed whenever a new government took office. During the campaign, however, Lula stated more than once that he did not intend to propose, at least initially, legislation that would reverse the Central Bank's independence.
Translated by Cassy Dias