Finance Minister Ueli Maurer had unsuccessfully opposed this in Parliament. Now, by order of Parliament, the Federal Council is planning à fonds perdu contributions for the SBB.
During the pandemic, the federal government had to keep SBB alive with loans.
The SBB management was not among those who rashly called for state aid during the pandemic. At least not publicly. When the NZZ asked the CEO Vincent Ducrot in March 2021 whether the public sector had to plug the corona-related deficits in long-distance transport, he said no: Financially, the SBB had the necessary strength to deal with the situation independently, he said. The assessment at that time proved to be overly optimistic. In the first half of 2022, SBB still carried 15 percent fewer passengers than in 2019 and made a loss of CHF 123 million in long-distance traffic.
The Federal Council wanted help for self-help
Before the pandemic, long-distance transport had made profits of over 100 million francs a year. According to SBB estimates, however, long-distance traffic will be in the red in the next five to seven years. In addition, the company groans under a mountain of debt of 11.3 billion francs. The fact that it can remove it on its own seems illusory. On Wednesday, the Federal Council therefore decided to give SBB a financial injection totaling 3 billion. He doesn’t do this entirely voluntarily. The Federal Council is also of the opinion that the railways cannot do without state crutches. The government therefore presented the cornerstones of an aid package about a year ago.
The Federal Council actually wanted to help people to help themselves. The idea: The prices that the SBB have to pay for using the train paths in long-distance traffic should be reduced. The costs for the company should fall by up to 1.7 billion francs by 2029. However, that did not go far enough for Parliament. In the summer session, Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, against his will, ordered the sword to be used instead of the foil. The Federal Council was instructed to declare the pandemic-related deficits of the railways as “extraordinary” and to arrange for an injection of federal money.
Now the Federal Council has delivered: The SBB are to receive an à fonds perdu contribution of probably CHF 1.25 billion. The federal government will therefore make equity capital available to the group in one form or another. However, this would “only” solve the liquidity problem, but not the income problem of SBB in long-distance traffic. The Federal Council therefore intends to stick to the reduction in train-path prices. This proposal had triggered defensive reflexes in some parliamentarians. The reason: if SBB pays less for using the train paths, less money flows into the railway infrastructure fund (BIF). This is the casket for financing railway projects.
Ueli Maurer had promised that the Federal Council would not dry up the fund financially. He will submit a legislative proposal to plug the holes in the BIF. However, distrustful parliamentarians had feared that the government wanted to delay the expansion of the railway infrastructure in order to spare the budget. This fear was apparently unfounded. On Wednesday, the Federal Council disclosed how it intends to compensate for the CHF 1.7 billion shortfall in BIF revenue: as long as there are not at least CHF 300 million in the fund, the federal government’s revenue from the performance-based heavy vehicle fee should flow entirely into the BIF. This earmarking is intended to ensure that the expansion of the rail network is guaranteed.
The railways have to save less
Thanks to the cash injection, the SBB can shred part of their savings plans. The Federal Council’s original proposal envisaged that the railways make a greater contribution to financial recovery. The government wanted to oblige “its” company to bring in half a billion francs by 2030 with cost savings or higher earnings. That’s off the table now. However, the SBB have announced that they want to implement the already planned savings program of around 6 billion francs, regardless of the political decision.
According to the federal government, it is not yet clear how the à fonds perdu contribution to the SBB will be structured. It is conceivable that the federal government will convert the loans it granted to SBB in the wake of the Corona crisis into equity. So that the company can pay the bills and wages, the federal government has acted as Deutsche Bahn’s house bank since the pandemic. The credit line was increased in several steps and is currently just under CHF 4.5 billion. These treasury loans were granted outside of the cash flow statement. Accordingly, they are not subject to the debt brake.
The à fonds perdu contribution of CHF 1.25 billion, like the other Corona expenses, is booked as extraordinary. The federal government must compensate for deficits in the extraordinary budget, but the debt brake gives it more time to do so. The Federal Council intends to submit the bill for consultation before the end of the year. In Parliament, it should be dealt with in the summer session at the earliest. The money should flow to the SBB around 2024.