PDT goes to the STF against Selic’s definition and asks the Court to suspend Copom’s decision

The Democratic Labor Party (PDT) sued the Federal Supreme Court (STF) so that the Court orders the Central Bank (BC) to “improve” the decision-making process on the basic interest rate.

For the acronym, the Selic definition must measure and observe the impact of interest on the fiscal budget and the trajectory of public debt, in addition to “necessarily” taking into account the effects on economic growth, the job market, the eradication poverty and the reduction of social inequalities.

In the action, presented this Monday (23), the PDT also asks the STF to determine a review of the parameters used in measuring market expectations, with the opening of the Focus Bulletin to other institutional actors “not related to the financial market”.

First of all, the party chaired by deputy André Figueiredo (PDT-CE) also requests that the Court suspend the effects of the last statement from the Monetary Policy Committee (Copom), when the collegiate raised the Selic rate to 12.25% per year.

“The narrative of making an epistemological and evaluative cut, to conceive the Copom’s decisions only as a technical decision, devoid of political guise, does not find a safe place in the empirical world, much less in its effects and in the capture of the Brazilian public budget”, he says the party, which also claims that it does not intend for the STF to replace the monetary authority, but to submit the BC “to the precepts of the economic Constitution”.

For the party, the minutes of the latest decision on the Selic do not reveal any consideration by the Copom on the impacts of the rate on the job market or on citizens’ quality of life.

“The decision embodied in the last Minute could inflate the Brazilian gross debt by almost R$100 billion, which is equivalent to a relevant level of the economy foreseen in the spending package recently announced by the federal government”, stated the party.

In the PDT’s assessment, there is an unconstitutional omission by the BC in not defining a methodology for calculating the “Selic target” that takes into account inflation cores effectively susceptible to monetary policy, as well as the impacts of decisions on the labor market and public accounts.

“This occurs because prices of non-tradable goods, prices subject to monopolies or administered by the State, are not directly subject to interest rate inflows”, says the party.