During the four annual parliamentary sessions in Bern, the last day is not the busiest for elected officials. While the official schedule indicates debates from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., it is not uncommon that after an hour usually devoted to final votes, everyone breaks camp. National councilor Thomas Burgherr (UDC/AG) criticizes this situation and asks to extend the sessions.
“We receive 440 francs (editor’s note: compensation) and 115 francs for costs for one hour of work, that’s not okay!” he protests. The last day of the session is effectively counted as a full day. He filed an intervention so that politicians would not be released before 1 p.m. on those days. The Aargauian suggests that elected officials take this time to deal with certain pending interventions.
Files which are delayed are in principle debated during an extraordinary three-day session. But the interventions are piling up and today there is talk of extending this extraordinary session. Thomas Burgherr points out this paradox, because a longer day on the last Fridays would allow us to get ahead without it costing more, unlike a prolonged extraordinary session.
The meeting of the Federal Council, which takes place on Friday morning during the sessions, partly explains why parliamentarians leave earlier. Debates on new texts would force at least one member of the government to sit in the chambers and would make the meeting of the seven wise men impossible. Thomas Burgherr now wants to convince elected officials to move this meeting to the afternoon. At present, on the left, it would seem that such an idea is well received. The socialist Fabian Molina declares, for example, that he is “not opposed in principle” to sitting until the beginning of the afternoon.
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