If life becomes more expensive, AHV pensions will also be raised. However, inflation is not always fully offset. Parliament wanted to change this for 2023-24. The Federal Council presented the plan, but now Parliament has surprisingly rejected it. Contributing to this were dissidents from the center – the party that had tabled the proposal.
SRF NEWS: Pensioners assumed that they would receive the full cost-of-living adjustment this year. Now Parliament is backing down. Isn’t that how you lose people’s trust?
Philipp Matthias Bregy: I don’t think we’re going to lose confidence. But I very much regret that Parliament took this decision. At least our motion led to the Federal Council reacting quickly and adjusting at least part of the inflation.
But the Federal Council makes a cost-of-living adjustment every two years. That wasn’t due to the motion.
It was not to be assumed that he would make this inflation adjustment in this sense. But of course we would have liked to have had the full equalizer. And we are also convinced that people who have to live on a pension would have needed it.
Federal Councilor Berset said today in the Council of States that it’s like the pizza delivery service: Parliament orders, the Federal Council delivers. Now Parliament is rejecting what it ordered. How could it come to this?
I can’t give you that explanation. It was clear that we ordered this. We wanted that. The Federal Council has since reacted and made adjustments. Apparently that was enough for certain people in Parliament.
The adjustments made by the Federal Council have apparently satisfied some in Parliament.
There is an explanation for this: the voting behavior of the middle. Although the proposal came from the centre, some of your councilors no longer supported it. Do you have a problem with discipline in your faction?
Absolutely not. Today, both we and the left were missing people. It has nothing to do with discipline. There were some people who took a different position today than what we discussed in the parliamentary group meeting. But that has a lot to do with the fact that yesterday the FDP, SVP and GLP voted no in the National Council. It was clear that there would be no majority. And that gave these people a certain freedom.
The template would have brought an elderly woman with a minimum pension this year only seven additional francs per month. Was the bill primarily an election campaign tool of the center?
I’m always amazed that people call it an election campaign tool when the center makes advances. I never hear that from SVP and FDP. And I clearly reject that. We have people in Switzerland who live on a pension. If you have a minimum pension, then even seven francs a month is a lot of money. We wanted to work for these people. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to do that, and we regret that.
I am amazed at the accusation that we are campaigning. I never hear that from SVP and FDP.
There are people for whom these seven francs would have been important. Others would hardly have noticed, and yet everyone would have received the additional amount. What the AHV would have cost around 500 million francs.
It would have been more interesting to only give this money to those who really need it. However, the law did not allow it. You would also have given people these seven francs that they might not need. But that’s not the important thing. The bottom line is: the people who need it would have gotten it. And the AHV could easily have carried these 500 million.
The interviewer was Lariss Rhyn.