Council of States committee wants to spare farmers from austerity measures
Published: Wednesday, Nov 15th 2023, 18:40
Updated At: Wednesday, Nov 15th 2023, 18:43
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According to the Finance Committee of the Council of States (FK-S), agriculture should be spared further austerity measures. It has requested that over 40 million more be made available in the 2024 federal budget for direct payments, animal breeds, herd protection, wine and sugar beet producers.
It was important to the Commission to increase the amounts originally earmarked for the agricultural sector in order to ensure continuity, the parliamentary services announced on Wednesday. Agriculture was the only area that was originally affected by a long-term cut and not by a brake on growth.
The Council of States committee is therefore proposing a general increase in the corresponding budget compared to the Federal Council's draft, according to a statement. The majority is of the opinion that agriculture has already contributed to the restructuring of federal finances and that its budget has not been increased to the same extent as that of other areas of federal expenditure.
Fewer cuts in direct payments
Compared to the Federal Council's proposal, the FK-S believes that agricultural direct payments should be CHF 27.4 million higher in the coming year. A strong minority of the committee even wants to double this amount - and thus leave direct payments for 2024 at the 2023 level.
In addition, the Council of States Committee is requesting CHF 3.9 million more for the breeding and preservation of Swiss animal breeds, CHF 6.2 million more for the promotion of Swiss wine, CHF 2.0 million more for sugar beet production and CHF 4 million more for herd protection.
The Commission also proposed, without a dissenting vote, that a supplementary credit of CHF 3 million be granted for the protection of livestock in the current year.
Parliament should contribute to savings
To compensate for these additional funds, the committee voted 8 to 5 in favor of waiving a contribution to regional policy for 2024. In the eyes of the majority of members, this one-off reduction is justifiable in view of the fund status.
According to the press release, the FK-S is also of the opinion that the Federal Assembly must participate in the federal government's savings efforts. It therefore voted 7 to 4 in favor of applying the cross-sectional reduction of around 2 percent to them as well (-2.2 million francs). The same applies to the Federal Supreme Court and the Federal Administrative Court, which have not implemented the budget reduction demanded by the Federal Council. The Commission is requesting a reduction of 1.5 percent - this corresponds to a minus of CHF 1.6 million and CHF 1.3 million respectively.
In order not to burden the federal finances, the committee also voted 10 to 2 against increasing the contribution to the ETH Domain for 2024 by an additional CHF 25 million, especially as its reserves amount to CHF 1.4 billion. It also voted 8 to 5 against increasing the contribution to regional passenger transport by CHF 55 million for 2024.
Strengthening the army and security
The FK-S also rejects increasing the amounts provided for in the financial plan. This means that the goal of increasing military expenditure to 1% of GDP should be achieved by 2030 instead of 2035, as planned by the Federal Council. Bringing the target forward in this way would have meant additional expenditure of several hundred million francs a year for the Confederation from 2025 onwards, which would have had to be compensated for in other, less committed areas.
However, the Commission says it is aware that the situation has changed and that security needs to be strengthened. With a motion, the Federal Council is to be instructed to examine several financing options in order to increase armaments expenditure while complying with the debt brake.
The Commission is also in favor of creating sixty investigator positions at the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) in the medium term in order to increase the number of personnel in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. This measure should be budget-neutral.
The budget will be discussed by Parliament in the winter session. The responsible National Council committee has not yet announced its proposals.
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