Budget balancing act: agriculture gains, cuts to asylum assistance
After weeks of deliberation in the House of Representative’s Finance Committee, the upshot is additional funds for agriculture, offset by reductions in asylum and regional policy.
The intricacies of the discussions were compounded by debates surrounding the debt ceiling.
Shortly before the end of the budget deliberations, there was a structural deficit of CHF75.4 million ($85.3 million), as the parliamentary services announced on Thursday. As this would not have fulfilled the requirements of the debt brake, the committee decided to revert to some of the decisions it had already made and save CHF85 million.
+Swiss government opens consultation on agriculture subsidy cap
According to the press release, the bottom line is that the 2024 budget now shows a slight structural surplus of CHF9.6 million. In the overall vote, the committee approved this version of the budget by 11 votes to 1 with 13 abstentions, which could indicate an animated debate in December.
+Swiss agriculture remains under pressure despite success at ballot box
There are numerous changes compared to the Federal Council’s proposal. In a nutshell, agriculture is to receive almost CHF70 million more, to the detriment of social assistance for asylum seekers, temporarily admitted persons and refugees (CHF30 million less) and regional development (CHF25 million less).
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
More
How centuries of Swiss emigrants left their mark on the US
More
Electric cars stall in Switzerland
More
Wage hikes: Swiss unions and employers have radically different expectations
More
Switzerland’s struggle: balancing architecture, densification and heritage
More
Alain Delon’s complicated relationship with ‘peaceful’ Switzerland
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.