Higher subsidies for blacknose sheep and other animals? The National Council discussed many details in the budget. However, the Federal Council should determine the broad lines. Finance Minister Ueli Maurer finds that there is a “very, very high level” of lamentation.
Black-nosed sheep with rosy prospects that federal finance experts can only dream of at the moment.
You can see the tight curve and know for sure that the pace is too high, but you still don’t want to put on the brakes: This is how Parliament’s current fiscal policy driving style can be described. It came into its own in the first round of this year’s budget debate, which took place in the National Council from Tuesday to Thursday.
In the short term, the finances are still in balance. The Federal Council’s draft budget for 2023 envisages a deficit of CHF 670 million. According to the rules of the debt brake, this is permissible because the economy is not yet running at full speed. The deficit is likely to be even larger. This is exactly what the majority of the National Council wants to take advantage of: on Thursday it approved a budget that provides for additional spending of around 15 million francs compared to the Federal Council.
Urgently wanted: 1 to 5 billion francs a year
Most of the increases will benefit agriculture. The farmers can be confident that this money will actually flow, because exactly the same demands are on the table in the Council of States. Specifically, there are three decisions. Firstly, the advertising budget for Swiss wine donated by taxpayers is to be increased from CHF 3 million to CHF 9 million compared to the Federal Council’s plans. Secondly, the omnipresent wolf is also leaving its mark on the budget: the National Council wants to increase the funds for the item “Immediate livestock protection measures” from 8 to 12 million.
Thirdly, there are the native livestock breeds, which the National Council wants to have more state-funded. Here he has decided on a further increase from CHF 30 to 34 million. It’s about the whole range from Freiberger horses to Appenzeller Spitzhauben chickens to Eringer cows – not to forget the black-nose sheep, which can also be found on the farm of SP Federal Council candidate Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, which is currently giving them nationwide attention.
The red financial figures contrast with the black sheep noses. The medium-term prospects are worse than they have been for a long time. After Parliament decided on massive additional spending, there is a risk of deficits of CHF 1 to 5 billion from 2024, as the outgoing Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said.
For him it is the last budget debate ever. He would have liked to present proposals to keep the finances in balance. But his colleagues in the Federal Council would not allow that. Above all, Maurer wanted to start with the two items that, according to the previous decisions of Parliament, should grow the steepest: the army and contributions to reducing health insurance premiums.
Nothing came of it. And so the National Council spent hours discussing proposals for cuts and increases (and rejected almost all of them), but did not comment on the priorities for the next few years. The Green Liberals tried an individual motion aimed at slowing down the growth of the military budget, but had no chance. It will therefore be up to the new head of the finance department to draw up a plan that will enable the federal government to comply with the debt brake over the next few years.
Left and GLP want to loosen the debt brake
Ueli Maurer was confident. True to the motto that one should not speak of “saving” if only the growth in expenditure is slowed down, he explained: “It is quite possible to bring this financial planning into a corset without having to speak of renunciation.” There are enough resolutions that are not yet ready for implementation and therefore do not have to be budgeted for. Maurer’s conclusion: “We have to be aware that we are really complaining about the geopolitical situation in Europe at a very, very high level.”
How bad is the situation really? The SVP and FDP painted a bleak picture in the National Council, as did the center, albeit in less dark colors. The Left, on the other hand, and tendentially also the Green Liberals, consider the excitement to be exaggerated. From their point of view, a country with such a low debt ratio as Switzerland does not have any serious financial problems. Conversely, they are calling for the debt brake to be relaxed in order to prevent unnecessary cuts. The GLP, for example, would like investments, for example in real estate or in the army, to be allowed to lead to new debt, at least temporarily.
SVP wants to save – but not everywhere
The SVP, in turn, recalled that the short-term prospects were only good at first glance. On the second, two points stood out in the 2023 budget that are at least debatable: First, a distribution from the National Bank of 670 million francs is planned, which no longer seems realistic after the losses of recent months. Ueli Maurer also admitted this; However, this is legally permissible because to date there has been no binding decision on the (non-)payment.
Secondly, the federal government wants to book extraordinary expenditure of 1.7 billion francs in favor of Ukrainian refugees. This means that they are not subject to the debt brake, at least for the time being. The SVP doubts the legitimacy of this decision: Nine months after the start of the war, one can no longer credibly argue that these costs are exceptional and neither controllable nor foreseeable. The SVP wanted to book the money properly.
Their applications had no chance – if only because they would have immediately triggered considerable pressure to save. Federal Councilor Maurer said to his party colleagues that anyone who makes such proposals must also say where exactly savings should be made. The SVP did this relatively crudely and selectively: they wanted to make cuts wherever it was possible in the short term – with the exception of agriculture and the army. It should come as no surprise that this concept was not well received outside of the People’s Party.