BVG reform puts the Council of States under stress

The reform of occupational pensions is shaky. On Wednesday, the FDP spokesman wanted to correct earlier mistakes with an application launched at short notice. That went wrong. But the experiment shows where the journey should go.

Social Affairs Minister Alain Berset in conversation with Damian Müller, one of the three FDP members in the Social Affairs Committee of the Council of States.

Peter Klaunzer / Keystone

Is that a bad omen for the vote on the AHV reform in September? Influential middle-class party strategists absolutely wanted the Council of States to decide on the reform of the second pillar of old-age provision – occupational pensions (BVG) – in the current session. Her argument: people need to know what is planned in the BVG when they vote on the AHV. In the end, it is the total of the pensions that counts and not just one or the other pillar.

Nothing will come of it now. The Council of States held a three-hour discussion on Wednesday, but in the end decided not to decide anything yet. Instead, the majority rejected the BVG proposal to the social commission, so that it should make a second attempt to work out a viable solution.

Councilor of States Dittli is fighting his own application

The first attempt was very “special”, as was heard in some votes. That was primarily due to the FDP representatives. For the most difficult part of the reform, they have decided on a new proposal in the Commission together with the SP and the Greens. This would be much more expensive than the variant that the middle-class camp in the National Council decided on. This point is about the lifelong pension supplements of up to 2400 francs a year, which the new pensioners should receive in the next 15 or 20 years.

In the variant of the National Council, about every third insured person receives a pension supplement. The costs total 9 billion Swiss francs. The new proposal would now entail costs of 25 billion. 88 percent of the new pensioners received a supplement.

That went too far even for the originator of the proposal, the FDP member of the Council of States Josef Dittli. He had already let it be known in advance that he was no longer quite comfortable with the matter. Now he felt compelled to take an unusual action, which brought him criticism, especially from the left: On Tuesday – a few hours before the debate in the Council of States – Dittli himself submitted a new application, with which he now proposed a completely different variant for the pension supplements . Dittli’s new application was thus opposed to Dittli’s earlier application; he could no longer withdraw this because it had been accepted by the Commission.

There was no time for a French translation

But the majority did not think of simply waving the new proposal through. Dittli had prepared this in a small circle with other bourgeois social politicians. The administration had already calculated the relevant figures. Nevertheless, Dittli was lost. He had to listen to the fact that it would be dubious if the Council of States decided on a proposal that his commission had not even discussed. It is unacceptable for a small group to informally hatch a plan that the rest should agree to without further scrutiny. It was also criticized that the written justification for the new application, which covers an entire A4 page, was only available in German due to time constraints.

The rescue attempt clearly failed. Nevertheless, the discussion gives an idea of ​​the direction in which the BVG debate is developing. A solution is to be expected with which more pension supplements are distributed than in the National Council variant – but not as much as initially planned.

The new Dittli model can serve as a point of reference: 37 to 47 percent of the pensioners of the transitional generation would have received a supplement. The total costs would be 12 instead of 9 billion Swiss francs. One element in particular was new: people with relatively small retirement savings of less than 215,000 francs should always receive a supplement, even if their second pillar is well above the statutory minimum.

Consider left and right

However, the debate also showed how shaky the template is. It could already fail in Parliament. Resistance is to be expected from the left anyway, because the pension surcharges are lower than originally planned by the Federal Council. In the meantime, however, citizens are also clearly expressing their concerns. For example, Alex Kuprecht (SVP) and Peter Hegglin (middle) warned against setting the compensation for new pensioners so high that the redistribution at the expense of the employed would be even higher than today.

In addition, the reform harbors other stumbling blocks. It is fundamentally disputed how the basis of the second pillar – the savings process – should be adjusted. At what age should I start making wage contributions? How tall should they be? Which part of the salary should be insured? Depending on the structure, people with part-time and low-wage jobs could save higher pensions; however, they would have to accept higher wage contributions, and their disposable income during their working lives would fall.

Vote only after the elections – if at all

Women play an important role. They are at the center of the voting campaign for the AHV reform because their retirement age is to rise from 64 to 65. In return, large groups would like to cover lower incomes better in the BVG, which is intended to serve women in particular. However, there are concerns, especially in industry, that this will make provision too expensive.

However, there is an essential difference between these questions and the dispute over pension supplements. No matter how the savings process is changed: everyone pays in for themselves, as provided for in the BVG. With the surcharges, on the other hand, temporary redistribution and cross-subsidization between generations and companies should take place, which does not correspond to the core idea of ​​the second pillar. That explains the political explosiveness.

The Council of States changed the whole timing with the additional round. His decisions on the BVG reform are only likely to be made in September, immediately before or after the AHV vote. The foreseeable referendum on the BVG proposal, on the other hand, could only take place after the 2023 elections.

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