Confusion over Swiss army funding

Military planners have already known for years that buying new fighter jets and strengthening air defence systems would be a big challenge within existing budget constraints. Hence the decision was taken to make barely any new arms purchases, if at all, over a number of years in order to free up money. But the military veered from this plan. From 2020, the Federal Council and parliament approved new arms orders over and above what was originally earmarked. The army has been living beyond its means since then.

An unexpected solution appeared to surface in 2022, when parliament decided to boost defence spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The aim was to increase the country’s military budget to 1 per cent of GDP by 2030, from 5.3 billion to 9.5 billion Swiss francs a year. The finance ministry put on a brave face – and the military began to prepare a new shopping list.

Plans hit the brakes

But the Federal Council pulled the emergency cord only one year later after seeing how stretched federal finances had become. It advocated that arms expenditure now rise to 1 per cent of GDP by 2035 instead of 2030. Parliament accepted this slower timeline – a five-year delay that seems negligible on paper but has major implications. The army will have significantly less money – “only” around 5.3 billion francs – to buy new arms from now until 2035. The military has agreed purchases for which it no longer has a budget. And the top brass wanted to draw attention to this fact.

Unfortunate choice of words

The communication could nonetheless have been better. An unfortunate choice of words (“liquidity bottleneck”) gave the unwanted impression that the army would soon be bereft of funds. Amherd rowed back a few weeks later in an interview with the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, explaining that the military interpretation of “liquidity bottleneck” differed from general usage. This is what had caused the confusion. It did not mean that the army could no longer pay its bills.

In the short term, the number crunchers can solve the issue by repeatedly postponing projects and their associated costs. But this does nothing to treat the underlying problem: the military lacks the financial means to fund all the capabilities it wants.