Experts say summer parliamentary recess will be brought forward

Approval of 2018 Annual Budget Leaves Gambling Legalization in Brazil without Further Progress

President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia recognized that it would be difficult to reach the quorum needed to analyze any bill this year.
2017-12-15
Reading time 1:14 min
The sanction of the annual budget 2018 (PLN 201/17) last Wednesday has been deemed by many lawmakers as a sign that summer parliamentary recess will be brought forward and the proposed gambling legislation will not be analyzed by the Constitution & Justice Committee (CCJ) this year.

Several lawmakers have considered the decision to discuss the Annual Budget as an indicator that the Brazilian Congress will cease to conduct business this year, so there will be no further possibilities to obtain the quorum required to vote bills both in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, although the official date for the summer recess is Dec. 22.

Rodrigo Maia, president of the Chamber of Deputies admitted that it will be considerably difficult to gather the required legislators next week. “It is hard, although not impossible,” he commented. It is worth noting that the members of the Senate have safely assumed that the project will be treated by the end of February 2018.

Finally, next CCJ meeting has not been scheduled by senator Edison Lobão, president of the Committee, so it can be assumed that it will take place in 2018. Senator Benedito de Lira affirmed yesterday to the Brazilian media that he had already asked the president of the CCJ for the PLS 186/14 to be the first item on the agenda of the whole Senate's first meeting scheduled on February 21.

In this way, Brazil closes another parliamentary year without significant progress towards gambling regulation, and everything suggests that next year's fight will be twice as hard: 2018 is an electoral year in Brazil and the reduction of parliamentary meetings to devote time for electoral campaigns, together with the high political costs carried by this type of measures just a few months before national elections, makes it rather complicated for Latin America's sleeping giant to move towards a legal, safe and regulated gambling market.

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