Bartering The SVP wants something in return for abolishing the widow's pension

Until now, the SVP parliamentary group has been in favor of reducing the widow's pension. Now party president Marcel Dettling is proposing a deal: Married couples should receive more pension as compensation.

The SVP presents itself as the party of the people. However, it has bypassed the people in two national social policy votes.

SVP voters also voted in favor of the 13th AHV pension, which the party leadership had recommended rejecting. The game was repeated with the BVG reform, which was clearly approved and which half of SVP voters supported.

In parliament, the SVP also supported the Federal Council's plans to pay widows' pensions only up to the youngest child's 25th birthday instead of for life as before.

Lifelong payment stoppedFederal Council cuts widow's pension - existing pensions also affected

However, party president Marcel Dettling (SZ) has now come up with a compromise proposal: He tells Blick that there needs to be something in return for the cut in widows' pensions.

SVP proposal: less for widows, more for married couples

As compensation for widows, who will no longer be supported until the end of their lives, married couples should receive a higher AHV pension. Currently, married couples are entitled to a maximum of 150 percent of a single pension. The SVP wants to increase this maximum rate to 175 percent.

This would put married couples at less of a disadvantage compared to cohabiting couples. However, two single pensions are still a higher amount than 1.75.

In an interview with Blick, Dettling does not explain what advantage higher pensions for married couples would mean for widows who would no longer receive a pension even if the SVP plan were accepted. However, he also puts the proposal up for discussion as a swap.

Center keeps a low profile, SP against

According to Blick, the Committee for Social Security and Health will be discussing the revision of widows' pensions next week. "If we don't get through there, we will have to suspend the widow's pension reform until a decision has been made on the marriage penalty initiative of the Center Party," he says, indicating the direction of travel.

blue News readers on the capped widow's pension"We're slowly reaching conditions like in Germany"

The Center Party wants to abolish the marriage penalty altogether with a popular initiative submitted in March. It must now consider whether it wants to support the SVP with its proposal, which would take some of the wind out of the sails of its own initiative.

The SP has already explained to Blick what it thinks of the SVP's proposal. The People's Party is turning widows into pawns in a horse trade. The SP will not go along with this.