A constitutional amendment advancing
 through Brazil’s Congress seriously threatens
 the nation’s scientific enterprise, experts warn
Brazil’s science enterprise faces a serious threat
 now that a constitutional amendment proposed by
 President Michel Temer to help address the 
current economic crisis has been approved by the
nation’s lower house of Congress, according to
 high-profile representatives of the Brazilian 
scientific community.
The proposal, which would limit basic expenditures 
by Brazil’s current and future governments in
 areas like science, health and education for the next
 two decades, was passed by Brazil’s House of 
Deputies on 25 October with 359 votes in favour, 
116 against and 2 abstentions.
This so-called PEC 241 amendment still awaits
 Senate passage, but if approved, such government 
funding can receive no more than inflationary 
increases over the next 20 years, even if Brazil’s 
gross domestic product (GDP) increases. A Senate 
vote on the proposal is expected by 13 December.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry called 
the proposal unconstitutional, in a technical note
 published on 7 October. The agency argued that 
PEC 241 challenges the independence and autonomy
 of Brazil’s legislative and judicial powers, as well 
its justice institutions.
The situation represents an ‘imminent catastrophe 
for Brazilian science, which is facing already a very 
difficult situation, with laboratories stopping 
some activities,’ the president of the Brazilian 
Academy of Sciences, Luiz Davidovich, tells 
Chemistry World.
In fact, Brazilian researchers like Cassia Turci, who 
directs the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s
 Institute of Chemistry, said earlier this yearthat
 academic scientists in the country have been 
particularly hard hit by the country’s economic woes
 since 2015.

A ‘serious attack’

Tatiana Roque, president the professors’ union at the 
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, agrees that PEC 
241 would directly harm Brazilian science and 
education. ‘It is not only about a cut in the budget, 
but it is about the suspension of the constitutional 
guarantees of public investments in education and
 health,’ she states. ‘During the governments of five 
presidents, we never saw before such a serious attack
 on these fields,’ Roque adds.
If approved, PEC 241 will be a ‘disaster not only for 
research in chemistry but for the whole Brazilian 
science,’ echoes Aldo José Gorgatti Zarbin, president
 of the Brazilian Chemical Society who also is a
 chemistry professor at the Federal University of 
Paraná. Zarbin notes that 90% of Brazilian science 
takes place at the country’s universities, which he 
emphasises would see budgets frozen under the proposal.
However, PEC 241 does not provide details on the 
funding limits that would be set for the various sectors, 
and Davidovich suggests that the different areas, like 
science, will need to advocate for themselves and 
negotiate.
‘There is no guarantee that the budget for science 
will be kept in the same level as today’, Davidovich
 says. Nevertheless, he suggests that even the current 
levels of funding for Brazilian science would insufficient.
 The country’s science budget in 2016 is the equivalent
 of £1.4 billion, which is about to half the level of
three years ago, according to Davidovich. Moreover, 
he notes that ‘communications’ has recently been 
added to the purview of the government ministry that
 handles science and technology.
The new, broader-scoped ministry was announced in
 May, just hours after Michel Temer was temporarily 
named Brazil’s president as part of the political 
process that led to the impeachment in August of 
his predecessor, Dilma Roussef.

‘Moments of crisis’

Davidovich expresses concern that Brazilian science
 will not survive 20 years of deprivation. ‘Actually, 
three years can be fatal,’ he warns. To address this 
concern, the Brazilian Academy of Science is
proposing that science and technology funding be 
exempt from PEC 241, on the grounds that they are
 vital to economic development.
‘In moments of crisis, the solution is to invest in
 S&T aiming to increase the GDP, following the 
example of United States, which invests 2.8% of its
 GDP in the sector’, Davidovich states.
Darcisco Peroni, a member of the Brazilian Congress
 who put the PEC 241 proposal forward, is optimistic.
 He expects that the constitutional amendment will
 be successful in Brazil because similar strategies have 
been effective in the Netherlands and Nordic countries 
since the 1990s.
In the Netherlands, for example, Peroni says a budget 
cap was established in 1994, and by 2007 the country’s 
debt to GDP ratio fell from almost 78% to just under
 47%, and unemployment had dropped from 6.8% to 3.2%.
However, the International Monetary Fund has 
analysed the fiscal policies of 89 nations and found that
 Brazil would be the first to establish a 20-year budget 
freeze. The other countries set up such austerity 
periods of less than five years.
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brazilian-science-faces-imminent-catastrop