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Now it is certain: in 2024 there will be a major pension confrontation at the ballot box. Three bills are ready to be put to the vote: firstly, the reform of occupational pensions (BVG), against which the referendum will be submitted on Tuesday with more than 120,000 signatures.
Secondly, the citizens’ initiative of the trade unions for a 13th AHV pension. Thirdly, the pension initiative of the Young Liberals, which wants to raise the retirement age for everyone to 66 years and then automatically adjust it to life expectancy.
This would be all for a Super Sunday on March 3, 2024, when the three templates will be served together to voters.
Initiatives in March, referendum in June
However, the menu seems unpalatable to many political strategists. And so begins the haggling over how to split the deals. If you ask around Bern, the two AHV initiatives should come to the polls in March. However, the reform of the pension fund will not come until June.
Several considerations argue in favor of this classification. There is great fear in the bourgeois camp that all three companies will go bankrupt if there is a mix of AHV and BVG. The focus here is on the reform of the second pillar. According to the assessment, the BVG proposal could be crushed from left and right between the two AHV initiatives.
Scenario as with CO2– Avoid law
This is how the vote on the CO is remembered2law in June 2021. It was assumed that a majority of voters would support it. However, since two controversial agricultural initiatives came to the polls at the same time, which strongly mobilized the farmer-conservative camp, the CO2-Law was dragged into the vortex and just took off.
The BVG supporters want to prevent such a scenario. If the reform of the pension fund comes alone, they estimate the chance of success to be greater.
Don’t lump everything together
“It would certainly not be bad if voters deal separately with the AHV and the BVG,” says FDP National Councilor Andri Silberschmidt (29, ZH). “If everything is thrown into one pot and the 1st and 2nd pillars are mixed up, an objective discussion is more difficult.”
It is clear that as a former chairman of the Young Liberals, the pension initiative is particularly important to him. “While the left is eager to continue expanding the AHV deficit without taking into account the next generations, thanks to the pension initiative, AHV financing can finally be solved in a sustainable way,” he says.
“We face a directional decision”
The left is also open to a separate vote. If only the two AHV initiatives come before the people for now, there are two opposing basic concepts. Should more money flow into the AHV, as the left would like? Or should people work longer, as the right wants?
“We are facing a directional decision on how to proceed with the AHV,” says union spokesman Urban Hodel (37). He is confident that the SGB initiative has good chances. “The sharp increase in rents and the further increase in health insurance premiums will still be very fresh in March,” he says. “As everything becomes more expensive, retirees have less and less in their wallets.” That helps the initiative, but also the BVG referendum. “The sooner we vote on it, the better,” says Hodel. “But we can live well with all combinations.”
It is clear that the Bundesrat will fight both AHV initiatives. But even with a double no, the result would indicate the direction in which the next AHV reform should go.
Speaking of the Federal Council: since Minister of Social Affairs Alain Berset (51) is stepping down at the end of this year, his successor will have to struggle with the pension schemes. And this is where another argument for splitting comes into play. “It is certainly better if the new social affairs minister has enough time to read the complex BVG template before he has to explain it to the people,” says one MP smugly.
GLP-Mettler sees BVG reform as a compromise
Even though there is a lot to be said for two separate retirement Sundays, GLP National Councilor Melanie Mettler (45, BE) puts the situation into perspective: “With the two initiatives from unions and young liberals, there are two extreme variants on the table,” she says. “The BVG reform, on the other hand, is pragmatic and balanced.”
In this constellation, the pension fund proposal emerges all the more clearly as a good Swiss compromise. “It creates more justice for women and between generations,” says Mettler. “We now need to get this reform through, so that confidence in the second pillar is strengthened.”
Source:Blick
I am Liam Livingstone and I work in a news website. My main job is to write articles for the 24 Instant News. My specialty is covering politics and current affairs, which I’m passionate about. I have worked in this field for more than 5 years now and it’s been an amazing journey. With each passing day, my knowledge increases as well as my experience of the world we live in today.
