Let’s go for three days of debate on the 2025 budget of the Confederation at the National. The People’s Chamber began examining the project on Tuesday. A project for which the Finance Commission, led by the right, proposes to give the army 530 million more than what the Federal Council planned. This is to the detriment of International Cooperation which is expected to lose 250 million, asylum (-105 million) or even the expenses of Confederation personnel (-70 million).
And the left-right duel began. On the right, it is estimated that Berne is spending too much and not in the right place. “Spending on social security has quintupled since 1990 and today amounts to 30 billion francs per year. Spending on development aid has tripled. For decades we have been sending billions abroad. We spend twice as much on migration and development aid as on food and agriculture,” noted Lars Guggisberg (UDC/BE).
“Savings were only made in two areas: national defense and food, the two areas in which we are today in a deplorable situation,” he added. Both the UDC and the PLR should thus spare agriculture and farmers, while the Federal Council wants them to also make efforts.
On the left, we judge the project to be completely unbalanced. Both the PS, the Greens and the Green Liberal Party have also announced that they will not support the 2025 budget as it stands. What does not happen are the cuts in international cooperation. “Neglecting the promotion of peace and international stability today means risking conflicts tomorrow which will also affect us,” said Corina Gredig (PVL/ZH).
Cédric Wermuth (PS/AG) agreed: “We can do nothing more dangerous than attacking development cooperation. Internationally, who will fill this void in the Global South? It will be Russia, China, Turkey and maybe even Iran,” he said. “Development cooperation is the first line of defense and security policy for our country.” For the PS, it would be better to increase revenues by taxing capital more.
For Felix Wettstein (Greens/SO), what is particularly stuck is the increase in the army budget. “This represents an increase of 35% in a single year, and we do not yet really know how to spend this additional money,” he criticized. While there are enormous needs in terms of social, health and environmental policy.
But Reto Nause (C/BE) countered: “Today we are correcting the sharp cuts of past decades. This correction must allow us to defend ourselves again, purely and simply,” he stressed. “The security situation has changed and the budget must take it into account,” added Peter Schilliger (PLR/LU)
After the National, the file will go to the Council of States and it will then be ping-pong between the Chambers to resolve the differences during the three weeks of the winter session.
