Swiss Centre Party leader says report on proposed federal budget cuts ‘one-sided’

Pfister believes that the group of experts focused too much on the potential for savings and not enough on generating additional revenue. Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The president of the Centre Party, Gerhard Pfister, is critical of discussions launched by the Swiss government on an expert report aimed at making savings in the state budget. He also regrets that the experts have neglected measures that would have generated additional tax revenues.

In an interview with the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche, Pfister said that he was not comfortable with the approach taken by the Federal Council (executive body), which organised round tables at the beginning of the week to sound out the views of the parties and social partners on the proposed savings measures. He said “the mere fact of being present gave the impression of agreeing with this report”.

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He believes that the government’s aim was to “give an image of unity behind proposals that would be objective and that could not be called into question”. However, the experts’ report contains “fundamentally political measures”, he added.

+ Expert group proposes CHF4-5bn of cuts to Swiss federal budget

As a result, the document cannot simply become the basis for reflection, said the parliamentarian. Dialogue must take place at a political level with the Federal Council, which he accused of “copping out of its responsibilities”.

‘One-sided’ report

The party leader, who often acts as a referee in financial discussions, also criticised the report for being “one-sided”. While the task of the group of experts chaired by Serge Gaillard was twofold (to examine the potential for savings and also for additional revenue), 90% of their report focuses on the first aspect, said Pfister.

In the remaining 10%, the experts examined the possibility of abandoning certain tax breaks for businesses. But Pfister believes that new sources of revenue should also be considered, in particular through taxation.

While he said he is not prepared to abandon the principle of the debt brake, which was widely accepted in a referendum, he believes there is room for manoeuver. For him, there is a balance to be struck between accumulating debt and not being able to invest, which is also a way of leaving debts for future generations.

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“We need to get away from the dogmatic view of the debt brake and take a more pragmatic approach to it,” he said. After spending CHF30 billion on the Covid-19 pandemic and taking a CHF250 billion risk to save Credit Suisse, the government is not credible when it now tells the public that the budget is a few hundred million short,’ said the Centre’s president.

Adapted from German by DeepL/gw

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