This Wednesday, ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva guaranteed to the Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo the approval of the agreement that they secured in 2009 and that readjusts the value paid by Brazil for the energy bought from Paraguay.

According to Lula, the Party of Workers will vote massively on March 30, when the matter must be passed in the Chamber of Deputies.

Lula was in Asunción, invited by the Paraguayan Ministry of Education, and spoke on the social policies developed by him in eight years of mandate.

This Thursday, the senator Gleisi Hoffmann (Party of Workers – state of Paraná) defended the increase of the values paid by Brazil. Of the current R$ 120 annual millions, Brazil will pay US$ 360 millions with the approval of the agreement.

According to Gleisi Hoffmann, “the increase in the values paid by Brazil to Paraguay for the energy produced in Itaipu means a lot for the Paraguayans and doesn´t represent substantial weight in the budget of Brazil”.

“With this growth, investments will be promoted in social actions and infrastructure, which certainly will produce positive effects in the Brazilian border region and for the Brazilians who live in Paraguay. And on our side, it doesn´t represent substantial weight in our budget and even in the bills of electric energy of the Brazilian citizens”, assured the senator.

In her evaluation, the agreement also doesn´t modify the Treaty of Itaipu.

“It will keep in force in all the functioning systematics, inclusive the one that obliges that country to sell in its integrality the excess of energy produced in Itaipu to us, Brazilians, up to the year of 2023. The only different thing is that the values paid in this operation were corrected”, she affirmed.

Gleisi Hoffmann explained that, despite of Brazil had invested more resources in the construction of the facility, Itaipu wouldn´t exist without the participation of Paraguay, "at least not in that strategic position".

Besides, Paraguay has the second biggest population of Brazilian residents out of their homeland, nearly 300,000 people, only behind of the number of Brazilians resident in the United States.