For the first time, Geneva has become the largest contributor to Switzerland’s national fiscal-equalisation scheme, which moves funds from wealthy to poorer cantons. Next year Geneva will pay CHF 543m, more than Zurich and Zug, the former leaders.
Nathalie Fontanet, the canton’s finance director, told SRF she is both proud and uneasy: proud that Geneva now tops the ranking of the country’s financially strongest cantons, and uneasy because the payment leaves a sizeable gap to fill in her own budget.
The rise reflects a surge in tax receipts in 2022, driven largely by commodity trading during a period of high prices—Geneva is home to a number of sizeable trading operations. Those revenues have since ebbed, but because the system is calculated with a lag, the higher contribution is only now falling due. The bill must be paid, says Fontanet, but doing so will be difficult; she plans spending cuts and will present a savings programme in the spring.
On a per-capita basis, Geneva’s net transfer of CHF 814 is lower than those of Nidwalden (1,110), Basel-City (1,123), Schwyz (1,567) and Zug (3,350). The combination of moderately high per-capita revenue and a relatively high population have pushed Geneva into the lead.
Whether Geneva’s new fiscal status brings greater political clout in Bern is less clear. Carlo Sommaruga, a Socialist Party member of parliament from Geneva, doubts it. Beneficiary cantons, he notes, argue that they help generate Geneva’s wealth—watchmaking in the Jura, for instance, supplies parts to Geneva brands—and therefore rightly receive transfers. He recalls with irritation the days when Geneva and French-speaking Switzerland were derided as the Greeks of Switzerland; the label, he says, was wrong then and is absurd now.
Sommaruga wants Geneva’s success to strengthen International Geneva, particularly the UN presence, arguing that when Geneva prospers, Switzerland benefits too. Mauro Poggia, a member of the Council of States from the Mouvement Citoyen Genevois, echoes that view, calling federal spending on Geneva’s international role an investment rather than a cost. Multilateral diplomacy, he warns, is under strain and the city will continue to need federal backing.
According to the Federal Finance Administration, Geneva is likely to rise further in the resource index next year and to remain the largest donor to the equalisation system for at least the next four years—an outcome that brings both prestige and pressure.
Equalisation payments are a bind for cantons with high revenue and even higher spending.
More on this:
SRF article (in German)
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