The Millennium Institute (Imil, or Instituto Milenio) is the foremost right-wing think tank in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Formed in 2005 by economist Patrícia Carlos de Andrade, Imil promotes radical free-market economics, privatization and social conservatism.
During President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first and second terms, they regularly countered his policies. When protests erupted in 2015 protests against the Workers’ Party’s Dilma Rousseff, they supported her impeachment. In 2018, amid the Lava Jato case, they published a piece called “Left Myopia,” stating that “improving the country's institutions, whether to build a rule of law or to improve the business environment, does not seem to be part of the left's concerns.” When Bolsonaro was defeated in 2022, Imil’s chairman Sebastião Ventura P da Paixão Jr wrote that Latin America is “submerging into a dangerous regression to socialism, guided by wrong-headed, backward economic ideas that never worked anywhere.”
According to outlet DeSmog, eight of Bolsonaro’s administration members have been involved with the Millenium Institute. Some prominent members include Paulo Guedes, Bolsonaro’s finance minister and co-founder of the institute, and journalist Rodrigo Constantino, the “Breitbart of Brazil” who chairs the Instituto Liberal. Their ideological legacy is expansive — shaping Brazil’s businesses, media, and environmental policy, and stoking contempt for the Workers’ Party.
Imil’s funders range from Brazilian media conglomerates such as Grupo Abril (who own Veja and Exame) and OESP Group, to the American Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. They have previously stated that they are ideologically aligned with the Atlas Network.
