Search on Ifri.org

About Ifri

Frequent searches

Suggestions

First Year of Lula: Overview of the Political Situation in Brazil

Memos
|
Date de publication
|
Image de couverture de la publication
couv_briefing_martin_us_2024_page_1.png
Accroche

This Briefing offers an analysis of Brazil's political and economic situation and prospects at the end of 2023. It also examines Brazil's position on certain international relations issues, thirteen months after Lula's election.

Image principale
G20 Brasil Flag
G20 Brasil Flag
United Nations (UN)
Corps analyses

Brazil’s economic performance has been decent in 2023. Despite the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) conservative growth forecast of 1% in October 2022, the actual growth now exceeds 3%. However, the outlook for 2024 is uncertain. With November’s inflation drop to 4.7% compared to the same period in 2022, interest rates are decreasing, yet the Selic key rate1 remains high at 11.75%. External accounts are robust, with a current account deficit below 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) easily financed by foreign direct investment (FDI), maintaining foreign currency reserves at USD 340 billion. However, a concern arises from the public finance deficit, as the government initially projected a 1.3% GDP primary deficit for 2023 and recently revised it to approximately 1.7%, leading to an overall deficit exceeding 7%, posing sustainability challenges.

 

  • Brazil’s economic performance was satisfactory in 2023, while Lula faces a much less favorable international context than in his first two terms and a right-wing Brazilian parliament.
  • His social priority, just as in 2003, is to lift some of the seventy-one million Brazilians out of poverty. Social transfers, ultimately inexpensive, will contribute to this aim. Brazil also needs more sustained growth.
  • December’s vote on tax reform was an undeniable success for both Lula and his finance minister. It also highlighted the difficulties of negotiating with a parliament dominated by special interests.
  • Lula’s time in office was finally marked by Brazil’s return to the world scene, after four years of eclipse. Maintaining good relations with all parties, with a view to a possible role as mediator in certain conflicts, is, however, difficult in a more polarized world. 

 

> The French version of this Briefing is also available at this link : First Year of Lula: Les enjeux politiques au Brésil après un an de présidence Lula

Decoration

Available in:

Regions and themes

Thématiques analyses

ISBN / ISSN

979-10-373-0817-7

Share

Download the full analysis

This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.

First Year of Lula: Overview of the Political Situation in Brazil

Decoration
Author(s)
Photo
Jean-Louis MARTIN

Jean-Louis MARTIN

Intitulé du poste

Associate Research Fellow, Americas Program and Energy and Climate Center, Ifri

Image principale
Climate & Energy
Center for Energy & Climate
Accroche centre

Ifri's Energy and Climate Center carries out activities and research on the geopolitical and geoeconomic issues of energy transitions such as energy security, competitiveness, control of value chains, and acceptability. Specialized in the study of European energy/climate policies as well as energy markets in Europe and around the world, its work also focuses on the energy and climate strategies of major powers such as the United States, China or India. It offers recognized expertise, enriched by international collaborations and events, particularly in Paris and Brussels.

Image principale

Europe’s Black Mass Evasion: From Black Box to Strategic Recycling

Date de publication
02 December 2024
Accroche

EV batteries recycling is a building block for boosting the European Union (EU)’s strategic autonomy in the field of critical raw minerals (CRM) value chains. Yet, recent evolutions in the European EV value chain, marked by cancellations or postponements of projects, are raising the alarm on the prospects of the battery recycling industry in Europe.

Image de couverture de la publication
Couverture Politique étrangère 4-2024

The New Geopolitics of Energy

Date de publication
03 December 2024
Accroche

Following the dramatic floods in Valencia, and as COP29 opens in Baku, climate change is forcing us to closely reexamine the pace—and the stumbling blocks—of the energy transition.

Image principale

Can carbon markets make a breakthrough at COP29?

Date de publication
30 October 2024
Accroche

Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) have a strong potential, notably to help bridge the climate finance gap, especially for Africa.

Image principale

Taiwan's Energy Supply: The Achilles Heel of National Security

Date de publication
22 October 2024
Accroche

Making Taiwan a “dead island” through “a blockade” and “disruption of energy supplies” leading to an “economic collapse.” This is how Colonel Zhang Chi of the People’s Liberation Army and professor at the National Defense University in Beijing described the objective of the Chinese military exercises in May 2024, following the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te. Similar to the exercises that took place after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August 2022, China designated exercise zones facing Taiwan’s main ports, effectively simulating a military embargo on Taiwan. These maneuvers illustrate Beijing’s growing pressure on the island, which it aims to conquer, and push Taiwan to question its resilience capacity.

Page image credits
G20 Brasil Flag
United Nations (UN)

How can this study be cited?

Image de couverture de la publication
couv_briefing_martin_us_2024_page_1.png
First Year of Lula: Overview of the Political Situation in Brazil, from Ifri by
Copy
Image de couverture de la publication
couv_briefing_martin_us_2024_page_1.png

First Year of Lula: Overview of the Political Situation in Brazil