Opinion – Ana Paula Vescovi: Eduardo Guardia

This is a story full of admiration, respect, friendship.

I met Eduardo in the late 1990s, in Brasília, a newcomer to the federal public service. We were young and had the privilege of learning how to make public policy and make decisions that affect the lives of millions of people with professionals like Amaury Bier, José Roberto Mendonça de Barros, Pedro Parente, Murilo Portugal.

A team led by Pedro Malan at Fazenda, Martus Tavares at Planning, in addition to Gustavo Franco and then Arminio Fraga at the Central Bank. It was this team that helped to put the Plano Real on its feet and create the fiscal rules that still serve as the direction for our economy. This was the team that carried out the renegotiation of subnational debts and worked for the approval of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, which led Brazil to the primary surplus necessary to balance the public debt and to grow sustainably in the early 2000s.

Eduardo was the technician who had studied the fiscal and budgetary issues in depth and, in the government, he had been a very important voice in the discussions that helped the country to face the combination of explosive debt and public accounts out of control.

In 2002, Eduardo became the youngest holder of the National Treasury and was the one who managed the economic crisis in the electoral transition, with strong exchange rate depreciation in view of the prospect of a change of government. There were many uncertainties about the future conduct of economic policy. At that moment, with a very short debt linked to the dollar, among other factors, the Treasury had serious difficulties in financing itself. It was the team’s reputation that managed to build a safe passage to the next government, with a focus on the very high level transition. And so Edward was able to pass a solvent Treasury to his successor.

Years passed, and I sometimes heard from Edu, as his friends called him. He was Finance Secretary in São Paulo and, in the private sector, he also consolidated his position as a respected and disputed professional. He worked for years at BM&F and helped form the B3 we know today. It was a period when we had few opportunities to meet.

In 2016, history brought us together again. Invited by Henrique Meirelles, who had just been sworn in as Minister of Finance, I took over the head of the National Treasury, in another acute or even more acute fiscal crisis than the previous ones. Less than a month later, I learned that Eduardo would be my immediate boss, second in the hierarchy of the country’s economy. He came to command a team of secretaries who, much more than friends, were economists with very aligned values ​​and thinking and a strong public commitment.

For me, her first words of support were remarkable: “Ana, working for the Treasury is a privilege, because immense challenges are overcome by the possibility of changing Brazil”.

Thus, we face the day-to-day of budget execution during the crisis that extirpated 7% of Brazilians’ income. Eduardo was a technical bridge with Ilan Goldfajn’s Central Bank and coordinated the construction of solutions with the teams: spending cap; Tax Recovery Regime for state governments; new Long-Term Rate for BNDES financing; changes to Fies to make student financing sustainable; implementation of the new State-Owned Companies Law; transparency of the numbers of credit and tax subsidies; formulation of the Social Security reform; negotiation of the transfer of rights and capital and governance adjustments at Caixa.

When in 2018 he became a minister, he invited me to replace him in the Executive Secretariat.

We faced the truck drivers’ strike —according to him, the most critical moment in his career—with a transparent diesel subsidy, meeting goals and fiscal rules. Thanks to their persistence and perception of political opportunity, we were able to complete the privatization of Eletrobras’ energy distributors.

He led an impeccable transition at the Ministry of Finance, a process that began during the elections, when we received all the economists designated by the presidential candidates. Once the election was defined, he personally fashioned meetings to present and open the dialogue of his successor with the presidents of the Houses in Congress.

As journalist Miriam Leitão described, Eduardo had the ability to dialogue, accept differences, show his point of view and manage to make the numbers something more gentle than arid. He exuded kindness, trust, respect, empathy and competence in the face of the most difficult interlocutors.

He did a lot for Brazil with the tranquility of someone who decided to serve the country at different times in his career. Today, looking with pride at all the honors he received, I see how much they all do justice to the person he has always been.

The hard times we shared in government made us great friends. He will forever remain one of the people who have influenced me the most and changed the direction of my career by encouraging me to have experience in the private sector. Eduardo inhabits not only my memory but a special place in my history and in the history of my country.