Among the few discordant voices, certain deputies, mainly from the radical left, considered that this NPIV maintained solidarity considered “too weak” between the municipalities. However, their criticisms, like their amendments from previous sessions, did not carry any weight. And in the final vote, the NPIV was approved by 113 votes, against 8 oppositions and 16 abstentions.
On April 18, 2024: Vaud standoff between cantons and municipalities around equalization
Initial project intact
This membership “delighted” State Councilor Christelle Luisier. The minister in charge of institutions spoke of “renewed solidarity” between municipalities and the start of “a new cycle” after years of tumultuous relations between the canton and the municipalities.
The NPIV concretizes the “historic” agreement concluded in March 2023 between the Council of State and the umbrella organizations of municipalities. The Grand Council analyzed it during seven committee sessions, then five in plenum, without almost touching the initial project. Among the rare modifications, an amendment, carried by the majority of the commission, adapted the definition of the compensation granted to so-called “mountain” municipalities.
What about SOS Communes?
In addition to a review of intermunicipal equalization, the NPIV provides that the canton injects 160 million francs per year to strengthen financial rebalancing in favor of the municipalities. It also includes a new distribution of certain cantonal bills (social and police), sources of recurring tensions between the canton and the municipalities.
The NPIV thus serves as a counter-project to the popular initiative “SOS Communes”, which demands that the entire social bill be taken over by the canton. It now remains to be seen what the initiators will do, they who said they were waiting for the end of the debates at the Grand Council before deciding on the future. If they were to maintain their text, a popular vote would have to take place next September.
Tuesday before the Grand Council, Pierre-André Romanens (PLR), one of the two co-presidents of the initiative committee, said he supported the counter-project. The other co-president, Josephine Byrne Garelli (PLR), was more critical, saying her “regrets” that the State had not considered taking over the entire social bill. She was the only one on the right to refuse the NPIV during the final vote. Pierre-André Romanens indicated that the “formal decision” of the initiative committee had not yet been taken, but that this would be done “soon”, by the end of June.
About the social bill: In the Vaud showdown over financial equalization, cantonal justice rules in favor of the State
