Federal budget of Switzerland

As budget expenditures are issued on a yearly basis by the government, the federal council, and have to be approved by the parliament,[1] they reflect the country's fiscal policy.

[5] Their revenues and expenditures are therefore not counted as part of the federal budget, but they together amount to more than 60% of total public spending.

[6] Within these important frameworks many principles of distribution of money are regulated, as for example how different projects can be realised, using joint funds from municipalities, cantons and the confederation alike.

Although the right to decide upon budget expenditures ultimately resides with the parliament, these mechanisms of redistribution constrain its ability to exercise this right.

Since these transfer expenditures are purpose bound by either legal or constitutional frameworks, they can not easily be changed and are therefore fixed in the short run.

Generally, the federal budget has to function as the economical backbone of the government and allow it to realise its main goal, the welfare of the people.

In order to achieve this overarching purpose, the federal council stated the three main goals of its fiscal policy: Out of these goals the federal council has forged a list of budgetary principles including the principles of transparency, efficiency oriented investment, market freedom, public-private partnership, fair taxation, preferability of indirect taxes, balanced expenditures and more.

[16] An analysis of forecasting errors between the years 2001 and 2010 revealed that generally federal revenues are being overestimated during times of recession.

Other expenditure includes 13.9% for the transport sector, 10.2% for education and research, 7.4% for national defence, 6.2% for agriculture and alimentation, and 4.4% for foreign relations.

On the other side, during the same period, a significant reduction of expenditures has been occurring in the sectors of agriculture and national defence; from 26.5% in to 12.4% (estimation for the year 2015).

[21] The reason for these low own costs are that in Switzerland the orderly implementation and control of national laws is often not part of the competences of the confederation but of the individual cantons.