Address by the President of the Republic, Michel Temer, during the opening ceremony of the 18th International DATAGRO Conference on Sugar and Ethanol

I want to greet the authorities who are here on the panel, all of them, and of course all the authorities in the plenary.

And I would like to begin by saying, Dr. Plinio, that you have made such a thorough, detailed and complete description of the achievements of our administration that, if it were not for the extraordinary audacity it would take, I would say I would enjoy to have you at all events for you to make this account.

So in addition, therefore, to all the essential attributes of Dr. Plinio, that Moreira Franco described here, I would add this: that he has this extraordinary capacity, with such a soft, melodious voice, to describe with all tranquility everything that was done in the government.

You see, many times and more, when you want to praise the works, the achievements of an administration on the political sphere, there are often oratory boasts, inflated tones of voice, infections of speech. But not Plinio, he did exactly this with extraordinary tranquility.

The second message I want to give is this: Yesterday I was talking to... I was naturally greeting the president-elect, and it was very opportune for me to come here today, because as we will have a government transition team, together with a transition team of the elected government, I want to say that I will make it clear to the transition team, and will do so directly, that whoever comes here should continue to honour the biofuel sector as we have.

And in so doing, I want to thank you for the tribute, for the homage that you have kindly given to me and the ministers who have worked in this area.

I also want to congratulate deputies Evandro Gussi, Arnaldo Jardim, Beto Mansur, Bruno Araújo, who was away for a while doing a beautiful job at the Ministry of Cities... But you were very important people in this period for us to reach this ceremony at this moment.

And like with every fighting sector, like every sector that has presence, like every sector that defends itself, as it happens in all sectors of this nature, as soon as I arrived I was immediately met with some requests about decrees still missing, which I want to sign soon to complete these regulations.

So I reaffirm our commitment to what we have done for the industry in the idea - as Dr. Plínio pointed out, as Diogo pointed out, as everyone pointed out - the idea that all this is part of an even greater framework, which is the framework of protection of the environment.

It is interesting that this biofuel formula, in the RenovaBio programme, is very closely linked with the Paris agreement, which I was one of the first to deposit with the United Nations.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to have presided over a government with a cabinet that had no divergences with each other. On the contrary, there was always an absolute convergence of purpose. We knew that we had a short time in the government, two years, two and a half years, and Moreira... If I may add an aside here... Moreira even said: "You still have two months of work". Since we don't work per month, or per day, but per hour, I did a calculation here and found that we have over sixteen hundred hours of work still ahead. So during our sixteen hundred hours, since we work hourly, we will still produce, God willing, much for the country.

But I reiterate, once again, that this joint work was very much the result of the dialogue that all of us from the government team have been able to accomplish over time. Not only internally, and you see that for the first time, I believe, there was no conflict between agriculture and the environment, right? There was a combination of efforts in which agriculture, agribusiness, was able to produce extremely important data, all internationally recognised during the various international trips and meetings that I have had. I have seen the appreciation that foreign governmental authorities have for Brazilian agribusiness, for Brazilian agriculture.

And I also received greetings from what we did for the environment. You know that we, in our government, have doubled the size of protected environmental areas in the country. Suffice it to say that in the matter of the preservation of marine waters, we have extended this marine preservation to an area corresponding to the size of Germany and France. And you see, Plínio, Doctor Plínio, that there was no protest, there was no disagreement. Exactly and precisely because of this convergence, we have achieved this in the government internally.

But of course, internal dialogue is not enough. We need dialogue with National Congress, which in a democracy is fundamental, and we need dialogue with society. That's what we did as soon as I arrived. I brought Congress inside the Executive, in a way, to say this: that Congress will not be an appendage to the Executive Branch, but rather it will be a partner of the Executive Branch in governing. And that's how we got these measures, we must agree, imbued with great responsibility reported here.

We must agree, my friends, that it is not easy for you to set a ceiling on public spending, for two reasons. First, because what any ruler wants the most is to spend at will. Especially we, who came from populist moments in which measures were populist and not, let us say, to support the people. But they were populist in the sense of being those measures you take in the present to be booed in the future. Popular measures are those that you take in the present to be recognised in the future. So, when we approved the Public Expenditure Ceiling, we did it with the support of National Congress. We also did something very responsible, because we set a deadline of 20 years, and there could be a revision of that ceiling after ten years, in the conviction, we, who faced a public

deficit of 179 billion reais at that moment... We knew that at least for 10 years there would be no way to do... What everyone does at home, is it not? You cannot spend more than what you earn, under penalty of after 3, 4, 5 months, having internal issues in your home.

Well, the country is our big home, so you cannot spend more than you collect, and the forecast is that the deficit will gradually fall, and from now on maybe in 10 years this public deficit may be revisable.

Incidentally, it was at 179 [billion reais], went on to 159, and next year's budget is for 139. So it is falling year by year. And it does not fall at once, because although we have accomplished, in the public spending ceiling reform... let us agree, despite having brought Brazil into the twenty-first century with the labour reform, with the labour modernisation.

And on this topic, I am, allow me to say, very proud. We are very proud to say that, in these last few months, the hiring rates have risen enormously. In August we had 110,000 new formal contracts, now in September 137,000, and we will end the year with more than one million formal contracts and 2 million or so total jobs, that is, people who have taken up some activity, exactly and precisely because of this modernisation that we have made of our labour legislation and other economic data that is part of our government plan. Without neglecting, of course, the issue of education.

You see, on the upper secondary education reform that we promoted, I always tell you that I was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1997, and I was already talking about high school reform then, and only 20 years later, when I took office, I said "Let's do it." And we did it by provisional measure, at first criticised, but afterwards, today, especially with more than 96% of the educational area of the country supporting upper secondary education reform.

But all this we did, I emphasise, with dialogue. The word dialogue is the key word because it meant talking with National Congress, and dialogue with society when we did the labour reform, we did after talks with the industry, trade and services federations and also with federations, with the trade union federations. So much so that, on the day we launched the project, we spoke on one side to eight representatives of Federations, the most varied ones, and eight representatives of trade unions, union federations. This dialogue somehow pacified the country.

And it is interesting to record a fact that is important, precisely at this moment, as Moreira Franco revealed. We were ready to do pension reform, which is the biggest deficit driver in our country. On the day we carry out pension reform, the deficit will fall extraordinarily. But the fact is that, at a given moment, when we were already politically and administratively ready with National Congress to approve pension reform, there was a monumental plot, a premeditated plot. Today I have all the revealing data of this plot, created so we could not vote pension reform.

But I always say, my friends, it left the legislative agenda briefly, but it did not leave the political agenda of the country. So much so that at this point what is discussed the most is exactly this, let's do the pension reform now, in these two months or in the next administration. I mean, we planted the seeds and these seeds were not destroyed, despite the plot that was set up at a given moment in our country. Our Johnny Saad, at Bandeirantes, gave so much support to these economic revolutions of our government that it enormously helped convince all Brazilians.

Now, when it comes to RenovaBio, I want to congratulate Datagro here for the work that was done. Because these things are interesting... Don't think, naturally, don't think that the President of the Republic has the most amazing ideas, the most extraordinary, the most fantastic ideas, the ideas most compatible with the needs of the country. Just sits at his desk, sends a bill to the Chamber or to the Senate, issue a decree. That is not how it is. What happens is exactly that the Executive, as well as the Legislative, are driven by popular will.

In particular, in the case of the RenovaBio... For those of Datagro, those who were permanently in my office, who would permanently go to National Congress looking for Gussi, Gussi and all the deputies, to insist on this measure, so that, quite frankly, if you will allow me, I want to share the homage that you have given me with all of you. My homage is also to those who worked on the data (incomprehensible).

Therefore, it is with great humility that we receive this homage, especially now that we are going to enter a transition moment. We have already formatted everything so that the next government receives everything we have done and, let us insist, so that there is no discontinuity, but on the contrary, that there be continuity, and all that is yet to be done.

And I see with great joy, with great satisfaction, that several sectors of the elected government already say that certain things have to continue. So I hope, so we expect, especially because, more than anyone, we all here, we are aware that for us to have social stability, to have political stability, to have national pacification, this is fundamental. We must strictly comply with the Constitution, and when you open the Constitution, and check the context of the Constitution, you realise that it exists to regulate social relations and to harmonise them, never to put them out of harmony.

Yesterday, I wrote an article at the request of Estado de São Paulo, to say: "Look, in Brazil you have two moments: a political electoral moment, which is the one that ended yesterday, when people face each other, when people engage in controversy, sometimes they exaggerate, they even bristle, but when election day arrives, and you saw, yesterday, all tranquility with which the result was produced... And now, as of today, we enter another moment of the Country, which is the administrative-political moment, no longer the electoral-political moment. And, this being the political-administrative moment, the obligation that the Constitution imposes on the elected and to the non-elected... The non-elected were also voted. The winners and those who did not win were the object of popular sovereignty, and the whole Constitution says: "Look here,

you as the majority must rule respecting the rights of the minority; a minority cannot disrupt the majority”.

So, let's say, in a democratic system, it is fundamental that there is opposition. Opposition helps to oversee, and oversight often makes you, practitioner of the acts of government, check what has been contested and reformulate what has been produced. But the opposition cannot be... cannot have a political meaning, and in Brazil it has a political meaning. That is, if I lose the election, it is my duty to destroy the government that was elected. This is not the legal meaning of government and opposition in a democracy. In a democracy it is different. You have acts of government that can be challenged, but you have acts of State. For example, pension reform, labour reform, are acts of State. Being acts of State, they lend themselves to benefit those who are in power today, and who eventually, at other times, may be in power, which may sometimes be the opposition.

I confess that, over time, I have lived on both sides. Government and opposition. And curiously, I would see, Rubens (...), I would see that the theses of the government, when it became the opposition, were the same theses as the opposition's. This cannot happen any more in Brazil. We are at a moment that we have to recover this phenomenon, let us call it so, that everyone knows that we are part of the same team. The team is called Brazil.

So we have to be all reunited. I'm taking advantage of this occasion, Plínio, since you also said kind things about my government... I'm taking advantage of this time to speak to this keen audience, right? One that is capable of forming opinions, isn't it? Because sometimes words fly. So you must say them all the time, repeat them. It is interesting how often the obvious has to be mentioned. For example, one power must not invade the competence of another power. This is so obvious, so trivial, so extraordinarily frugal. But it is necessary to repeat it at all times. It is necessary, I'll say it here, to honour RenovaBio, to honour Datagro, but one must repeat it all the time, as you do.

Then, when I see the kindness, the gentleness with which you listen to us and the kindness, gentleness, affability, chivalry with which you award us this prize that we are sharing with all of you. I, here from the lectern, I say, I have no more lectern. When I was in the Chamber I had a lectern, I do not have a lectern here. From time to time, I come to this lectern. I said: I'm going to take advantage of this lectern to say, finally, two things: long live what you are doing with Datagro, and long live Brazil.