The Swiss government said Tuesday it incorrectly projected more than 4 billion francs ($4.7 billion) for pension spending calling into question a vote on raising the retirement age for women.
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The discovery of this error immediately provoked strong criticism from the left, given that the Swiss population, which is accustomed to referendums, has voted several times in recent years on pension reforms based on these financial projections.
In 2033, expenditure on the Swiss pension system” should be around 4 billion francs lower than had been calculated”, the Federal Social Insurance Office said in a press release, referring to an “anomaly” linked to “two erroneous formulas”.
This corresponds to a “discrepancy of 6 percent”, it added.In 2022, the Swiss public narrowly voted in favour of raising the retirement age for women by one year to 65, a vote marked by a deep divide between men, who were in favour of the reform, and women.
For the Swiss Union of Trade Unions (USS), the country’s largest employee organisation with 20 affiliated unions, “it is clear that the extremely close result of the vote on raising the retirement age for women is being called into question”.
“With its alarmist scenarios, the Confederation has decisively influenced pension policy and exerted great pressure to reduce benefits”, the USS said in a press release.
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The Green Party also announced on X that they were “examining an appeal” against the vote, which had been “accepted by a narrow majority (50.5 percent)”.
The party wrote: “The financial forecasts for the AHV, on which the Federal Council based its demand to raise the retirement age for women, were wrong”.
The Swiss Socialist Women party said they were “appalled” and called for the vote to be “repeated”.
In the next few days, they will be “examining the political and legal options for holding Parliament and the Federal Council to account”.
Other parties also deplored the miscalculation while rejecting the left’s demands for a re-vote on women’s pensions.
The Federal Department of Home Affairs in a statement announced the opening of an administrative investigation.
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