The committee tasked with reviewing the Brazilian veto has yet to be established
Provisional Measure 1,394/2026 is approaching one month in effect without the National Congress having convened the joint committee tasked with reviewing it. As of Tuesday the 20th, the collegiate body had still not been formed and remained without a chair or rapporteur, while the initial voting deadline approaches November 23.
The status of the proceedings can be verified on the Federal Senate's official system, where the committee appears as "Awaiting installation." The page registers no meetings held or scheduled during October, despite the body's initial membership having been appointed on September 30.
Without this installation, nothing can get underway. The committee brings together federal deputies and senators, and must review the measure's content and issue an opinion before the text reaches the floor of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, meaning that until it is constituted, work cannot formally begin. The deadline to submit amendments, however, has already closed, and Congress received 99 proposals, featuring initiatives seeking to restore sports betting and others that would leave the ban in place solely for online casinos.
The upcoming schedule features two pressing deadlines. On November 9, the measure enters urgency status and, under constitutional rules, begins blocking the legislative agenda of the chamber where it is being reviewed, and on November 23, the initial deliberation period expires. In the meantime, the rule remains in force and active, and for it to become law, Congress must approve the text before the constitutional deadline runs out, with a possible 60-day extension. For now, there is no date set to convene the committee, nor is there an official decision on who will hold the key leadership roles.
The amendment count is the most telling indicator of what is happening. In early October, 48 submissions had been registered, at least 58 by mid-month, and the cutoff closed at 99, meaning parliamentary interest in amending the measure doubled while the body tasked with processing them did not meet even once. This combination pushes the scenario toward a 60-day extension, because without an appointed chair or rapporteur, an opinion is impossible within the initial timeframe, and an extension would push the final resolution to late January. The issue is that the market cannot wait on that timeline: federal authorizations expire on October 25 and the Ministry of Finance set December 15 as the deadline for companies to complete their shutdowns, meaning the regulated industry will be dismantled long before Congress votes on whether the ban stands or whether the market shut down by the measure is reopened, at least partially. Furthermore, there is a practical consequence to the delay worth noting, as appointing the rapporteur is the key political decision in the docket, not an administrative formality. Whoever holds that position drafts the report and determines which of the 99 amendments make it into the text and which are left out, so delaying the appointment is equivalent to postponing the substantive debate on whether sports betting returns, whether online casinos return as well, or whether neither comes back. Until that is resolved, the only timeline moving forward is the shutdown of operations.
Tags: Brasil, MP 1.394, joint committee, National Congress