Against the will of Ueli Maurer
Council of States wants 44 million for Ukraine aid
The Council of States wants to provide more funds than planned for civilian aid to Ukraine. As part of the 2023 budget debate, he advocated providing around CHF 44 million more.
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Russian ruler Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression leaves Ukraine in its wake.
The amount was spoken at the request of a minority around the Vaudois FDP Council of States Olivier Français (67). The money is urgently needed since civilian facilities in Ukraine are also being systematically destroyed, he told the Council of States on Monday. It is not about humanitarian emergency aid and certainly not about weapons, but about “often vital repairs” of destroyed infrastructure. The funds are not an increase in the budget, but reallocations of funds that “are not taken away from anyone”.
Finance Minister Ueli Maurer (72) opposed this additional “reconstruction aid”, as he called it. “With this increase, we cannot guarantee whether the money is really available for reconstruction or whether we will find concrete projects,” said Maurer. The planned winter aid of 100 million francs is planned for this, which will solve the current problems. Reconstruction aid will later be an important project, but now humanitarian aid is needed. (SDA)