functions to his successor Arminio Fraga. Economic Policy Secretary Franco served as Deputy Economic Policy Secretary at the Finance Ministry from May to October 1993 by invitation from the newly appointed Minister, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the fourth Finance Minister of president Itamar Franco, who had become president in December 1992 after the resignation of Fernando Collor de Mello. The other economists in the group were Winston Fristch, as Secretary of Economic Policy and Edmar Bacha as special adviser. In his memoir, Cardoso recollects that “with a small team facing a gigantic challenge, as a Brancaleone’s Army, ... we started to work, under a very discouraging political atmosphere”. This team faced a paradoxical pressure: not to repeat economic shocks and to produce some solution to inflation, then approaching 30% per month. The team's first major announcement was described by Franco, as a “non-package” or rather “an ambitious collection of medium term fundamentalists agendas”, curiously named as PAI (acronym for Plano de Ação Imediata, Plan of Immediate Action), released on June 13, 1993. In sharp contrast with previous stabilization attempts, this document seemed to point that the Real Plan would start by the end offering “some sort of strategic planning of actions in issues associated with the so-called fiscal and monetary fundamentals to stabilization”. Deputy Governor for International Affairs at the Central Bank Franco was appointed Deputy Governor for International Affairs at the Central Bank on September 8, 1993, when Pedro Malan was appointed Governor. Simultaneously, Pérsio Arida was designated president of BNDES, and André Lara Rezende replaced Malan was chief negotiator of then pending Brazilian external debt. With this enlarged composition, the economic team around minister Cardoso started preparations towards the Real Plan. In parallel, Franco had executive responsibilities in International Affairs at the Central Bank related to operational aspects of external debt restructuring under the Brady Plan, then at decisive moments, the administrative structures in charge of exchange controls, bound to be transformed by an ambitious deregulation process, the FOREX trading desk and international reserves management. External debt, Brady Plan and new bond issues At the moment Franco and Malan started working together at the Central Bank, the debt negotiation process was around the precise form of exchange of Brazilian currency denominated deposits owned by creditors (under the MYDFAs, Multi Year Deposit Facility Agreement) for newly issued bonds according to the Brady plan’s menu. In the final sequence of this