The National Council follows suit and approves the supplementary credits just like the Council of States.
the essentials in brief
- After the Council of States, the National Council also approved the supplementary credits.
- 164 million francs are being used to deal with the corona pandemic.
Parliament has approved various supplementary credits amounting to CHF 411 million. The Federal Council applied for the money, among other things, for the rail infrastructure fund (BIF), for additional expenses for the corona pandemic and for measures against climate change.
Submission in Parliament adjusted
After the Council of States, the National Council also approved the supplementary loans on Wednesday. The loans were accepted with 155 votes to 39 and 153 votes to 41 respectively. The template is now cleaned up.
233 million francs will go to the BIF. 102 million Swiss francs are intended, for example, to compensate for the losses in the lost rail line income, as Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said.
Big part for coping with corona
164 additional million francs will be incurred to cope with the corona pandemic. 37 million francs of this are located at the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). That is intended for the temporary staff, said Maurer.
The SVP wanted to prevent these “additional expenditures in reserve” – as Lars Guggisberg (BE) called them – but clearly failed. Federal Councilor Maurer stated that compensation within the Department of Internal Affairs (EDI) was of no use, but only weakened transparency.
Maurer: “We probably have too many vaccines”
Overall, the supplementary credits are a modest contribution, said Maurer. Parliament has already approved CHF 24.4 billion to deal with the corona pandemic. “The bottom line is that around 5 billion francs less should be used.”
At the same time, the Federal Council has parliament grant it the authority to transfer positions for medical supplies from the Defense Department to the Departments of Foreign Affairs. It’s about the vaccines. “We probably have too many vaccines,” said Maurer. If it turns out that this is the case, the superfluous vaccine should be made available to other countries.
Forest loan to deal with the effects of climate change
The forest loan will also be topped up by CHF 100 million for the current year. This fulfills a motion by Council of States Daniel Fässler (center / AI), which the councils referred in the summer. The additional money will specifically be used to cope with the effects of climate change on the forest.
The supplementary credits that have now been decided are the third addendum to the budget. The Federal Council has already applied for the fourth. These are loans amounting to CHF 79 million. Parliament decides on this in the winter session.
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