S permit and 13th AHV pension: Ticino asks Bern for more funding

The Ticino Council of State and the canton's delegation to the Federal Chambers met to review the financial impact of two dossiers the Confederation is passing on to the cantons: the S permit for Ukrainian refugees and the financing of the 13th AHV pension payment.

Bern has extended by one year the S permit for people who did military service in Ukraine, and will turn it into a kind of B permit after five years. In Ticino, this affects 1,700 people. The president of the cantonal government, Marina Carobbio Guscetti, is asking the Confederation to help cover the costs of the change: "Visti anche i risultati finanziari della Confederazione penso che ci sia il margine per farlo" ("Given the Confederation's financial results too, I think there is room to do so").

From January, around 30 million francs should become available in connection with the new ordinance. In the meantime, however, Bern has already cut funding for integration as part of its savings measures. Carobbio hopes these cuts can be reversed.

The most delicate issue concerns the labour market. Bruno Storni, president of the Ticino delegation to the Federal Chambers, notes that in Ticino only 25% of S permit holders have found work. Competition from cross-border workers makes it harder to hire this group. For Storni, cantons have more room to manoeuvre than members of parliament, and must use it to press the Confederation.

The 13th AHV pension dispute

The second dossier concerns the 13th AHV pension. The Confederation has proposed keeping all the additional cantonal and communal tax revenue generated by recipients' new taxable income. For Ticino, this would cost around 15 million francs. Carobbio is unequivocal: financing the benefit cannot come at the expense of cantonal resources, since cantons already contribute to the measure through ordinary tax revenue.

Added to this is the case of funds for reconstruction after the flooding that hit the Maggia Valley two years ago. The relevant report has been published and put out for consultation, but the funding proposal has yet to reach the Federal Chambers. Storni is calling on Bern to speed things up.

All three dossiers follow the same pattern: the Confederation decides on new tasks or benefits but leaves the cantons to cover the cost, or keeps them waiting for funds already promised. For Ticino, which already has to manage a labour market shaped by its border position, the risk is having to cover, with its own resources, decisions made elsewhere. It remains an open question how much fiscal room the Confederation actually has to meet cantonal requests, and how the relief it promises Bern squares with new burdens being shifted onto the cantons.