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Report nowA "halving initiative" is currently being debated - but in the 1990s, it was the SP that wanted to halve military spending with such an initiative. However, parliament stopped the initiative.
Switzerland is currently voting on the so-called "halving initiative" on the SRG. The term is reminiscent of a political project from the 1990s: Back then, the SP itself, of all parties, demanded a halving - not of media fees, however, but of the army budget.
Specifically, it was the popular initiative "For less military spending and more peace policy". It demanded that spending on national defense be gradually reduced by ten percent per year - until it was halved. On September 24, 1992, the SP submitted 105,680 valid signatures.
The Social Democrats' idea: The money saved should flow into three areas - international peace policy, additional social security at home and measures for structural change in the arms industry.
However, the Federal Council expressed legal concerns early on. In its dispatch to Parliament, it stated that the project was tricky because it linked military spending cuts with social policy measures, although there was "no factual connection" between these areas.
The background to this is a central rule in Swiss initiative law: the so-called "unity of subject matter". Anyone submitting a popular initiative may not combine several unrelated issues. The idea behind this: Voters should not be forced to approve a package just because they support one part of it. The passage is so important that even Wikipedia has written an article about it.
There were indeed major discussions about this in the Federal Council itself, as files in the Federal Archives show: Legal opinions were commissioned, which were used to justify a declaration of invalidity. The Department of Justice, then in CVP hands under Federal Councillor Arnold Koller, did not want to document its position on the issue in writing in the run-up to the Federal Council meeting. The position of then SP Federal Councillor Ruth Dreyfuss was different: she expressly warned her Federal Council colleagues not to request the invalidation of the initiative because it was a "politically very delicate decision that would have to be carefully weighed up".
Federal Councillor Ruth Dreyfuss argued for the validity of the initiative in the full Federal Council.
Bundesarchiv
Despite these concerns, the Federal Council recommended that Parliament declare the initiative valid. In the dispatch, the government formulated the principle: "In case of doubt, in favor of the people's rights."
«In case of doubt, in favor of the people's rights.»
In terms of content, however, the Federal Council clearly opposed the request. The government argued that halving the funds would practically make the planned army reform "Army 95" impossible and massively weaken Switzerland's defense capability. Autonomous national defense would hardly be conceivable with a halved budget. In the dispatch, the Federal Council also warned that a militarily weak Switzerland could trigger a "vacuum effect" - with more instability and possible interventions from abroad.
In 1994, the Swiss army had logistics troops that worked with horses.
KEYSTONE
The government also expected considerable economic consequences. According to the analysis, a drastic cut in military spending could cost up to 25,000 jobs - especially in industry and local trade. Regions with a strong defense industry, such as around Thun, would be particularly affected. The Federal Council also estimated the social costs of such redundancies at over CHF 2.5 billion.
In June 1995, the initiative came before parliament. Right from the start, opponents described the initiative as a "halving initiative". Paul Rechsteiner, SP National Councillor for St. Gallen at the time, criticized the motion to declare the initiative invalid as an "abrupt and brusque change in practice".
He argued that declaring the initiative invalid would also cement a certain view of security policy - namely that social policy and security policy must be strictly separated.
In 1994, recruits still had to learn how to use the service bicycle (Fahrrad 57).
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The conservative majority was not swayed by this. It focused on legal considerations: military expenditure and social security should not be linked in a popular initiative. The requirement of "unity of matter" was ultimately also a protection for the electorate, argued the opponents - otherwise "deceptive packages" could be put together with several issues in future.
There was also an "Arena" program on the subject. Carlo Schmid (CVP/AI), a member of the Council of States from Appenzell at the time, said: "When I look at the initiative, there are certainly two things packaged together that could be answered with a yes and a no." The then SP National Councillor and former SP President Helmut Hubacher even warned the male-dominated political panel: "Gentlemen: if you carry on like this, there will soon be 51% in favor of abolition."
In the end, the National Council decided by 100 votes to 77 to declare the initiative invalid. This prevented it from going to the ballot - an extraordinary step. Until then, this had only happened twice before in Swiss history: in 1920 for an initiative against foreigners and in 1977 for an initiative against inflation, both also due to a violation of the "unity of the subject matter".
However, the Social Democrats did not give up. They later launched a new initiative to reduce army spending. In the so-called "redistribution initiative", the money saved was to flow exclusively into international peace policy - no longer also into social policy measures at home. However, the initiative was not very successful with the electorate: in November 2000, the proposal failed by a clear margin. Only 37.6 percent of voters said yes.
