Lula government promises Lira to extend visa exemptions to the USA, Canada and Japan once again

The Lula government promised the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), which will once again extend visa exemptions for tourists from the United States, Canada and Japan. Itamaraty does not confirm the extension. The political agreement was reached after Lira scheduled the vote for this Wednesday, 27th, on a legislative decree to overturn the return of the document’s requirement on April 10th. The new deadline has not yet been defined.

As revealed by Estadão Columnthe president of the Chamber, in practice, wanted to make a nod to the opposition when drafting the decree, which goes against the Brazilian diplomatic tradition of reciprocity: that is, demanding visas from citizens of countries that do the same with Brazilians.

“I propose to withdraw the PDL [projeto de decreto legislativo] today. The government is committed to issuing the decree by next week. If we don’t do this, in the first week of April we will vote for the PDL. In other words: the government would have next week to issue the decree. If we did not do so, in the week of April 9th, we voted”, stated Alencar Santana (PT-SP), deputy leader of the government.

According to the Estadão Column, Planalto and Itamaraty were taken by surprise with the project’s inclusion on the agenda of the day. The rapporteur for the lifting of the visa requirement is the federal deputy Lucas Redecker (PSDB-RS), president of the House’s Foreign Relations and National Defense Committee and critical of the Lula government’s foreign policy.

Lira’s “wink” at the opposition came after the Centrão leader made several nods to the Planalto Palace. He also scheduled for this Wednesday the project that recreates compensation for Personal Injury for Land Motor Vehicles (DPVAT), a proposal supported by the government.

The mandatory visa was abolished by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in 2019, but resumed under the Lula government. As shown by Estadão Column, in December, vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) articulated the extension of the visa exemption for entry into Brazil for these Australian, Canadian and American citizens. The deadline would end on January 10th and was extended to April 10th. The temporary strategy aimed to avoid impacts on the tourism sector during the summer season.

To defend its position for maintaining the visa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gathered data from the Travellyze database that shows the visa as the 11th concern of European tourists, far from being a priority issue. The first ten include issues of health, cleanliness, safety, travel time to the destination, availability of direct flights, political stability, among others.