Federal Council Ignores Environmental Promises in Relief Package 27

Relief Package 27 hits climate and nature conservation as well as public transport far above average, accounting for a quarter of all cuts.

In doing so, the Federal Council is destroying the foundations of life for future generations. The members of the Environmental Alliance demand a thorough impact assessment and a rethink: environmentally harmful subsidies and tax concessions must be dismantled.

Cuts today should not generate additional costs in the future — this principle of good governance is being flagrantly disregarded by the Federal Council in Relief Package 27. With a quarter of the planned 4.6 billion francs, the cuts disproportionately affect the areas of climate and nature conservation and public transport, causing serious downstream costs. Peatlands, for example, will dry out, continue to release CO2, and be irretrievably lost as habitats for endangered species if funding for rewilding is cut. The climate and biodiversity crises will intensify at the expense of future generations. This is unacceptable.

Assess impacts and dismantle harmful subsidies

In their statements, BirdLife Switzerland, Greenpeace Switzerland, Pro Natura, SES, VCS and WWF Switzerland demand that the Federal Council present a thorough impact assessment of the planned cuts and involve relevant stakeholders such as cantons and municipalities before adopting the relief package. In doing so, it must take into account both the rising costs of inaction today and the revenue potential from eliminating environmentally harmful perverse incentives.

Because the federal government still spends dozens of billions of Swiss tax francs every year on subsidies and tax breaks that harm the climate and nature. Remedying the damage incurs further costs, meaning these misguided incentives burden the public budget twice over. Eliminating them would have enormous potential to relieve both public finances and the environment. The members of the environmental alliance are therefore making concrete proposals for additional revenue through the reduction of environmentally harmful expenditure and for the counterfinancing of environmental protection measures that must under no circumstances be cut, contrary to the Federal Council's view.

Violations of Good Faith

With the planned cuts in the environmental sector, the Federal Council is overturning parliamentary decisions that were only just adopted and breaking referendum promises. Rather than maintaining the current level of funding for biodiversity, as it repeatedly pledged during the biodiversity initiative campaign, it intends to slash the corresponding funds by over 70 million francs per year. Environmental education is to be defunded, river restoration and biodiversity in agriculture heavily cut, and the Landscape Fund abolished entirely.

On climate protection, the Federal Council wishes to abolish or massively curtail various measures from the CO₂ Act adopted only a year ago: building programmes, international day and night rail connections, and alternative CO₂-free propulsion systems for buses and ships. As a result, spending on more climate-friendly housing would fall to its lowest level in 13 years, bus routes would have to be discontinued, regional train services suspended, or public transport fares increased. All of this contradicts recent popular votes and survey results.