Economic national supply

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Logo economic national defense.jpg

As NES (to 1980 National Economic Defense ) in which is Switzerland the state ensuring the supply of essential goods and services in the event of power-political or military threats as well as in severe shortages referred, which is unable to meet even the economy. The Federal Office for National Economic Supply (BWL) is the competence center for questions of security of supply (water, food, energy, raw materials). It belongs to the Federal Department of Economics, Education and Research (EAER).

history

The agricultural area, which is limited by the climate, altitude and population density in the Central Plateau, as well as the lack of natural resources in Switzerland, prompted the eight old towns to adopt a supply policy, in particular to ensure the supply of grain (grain policy) and salt. This comprised stockpiling, production control, delivery commitments in contracts ( Milan capitulates ) and territorial expansion (subject areas Aargau and Vaud).

The cantons (estates) promoted the degree of self-sufficiency in mining (iron, coal), salt mining (Bern, Bex) and in the textile industry ( mercantilism ). In the event of import disruptions, they imposed export bans, negotiated with foreign countries for import permits or procured the missing goods themselves, such as Prince Abbot Beda Angehrn , who imported Egyptian grain from Venice via the Graubünden passes to St. Gallen in the famine winter of 1770/71.

19th century

The continental blockade led to supply bottlenecks in cotton and colonial goods and prompted the daily statute to intervene. After 1815, national economic supply was again a matter for the cantons. Thanks to a contract with the Austro-Habsburg Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Ticino was able to import grain and salt from Milan with the border closed.

With the Federal Constitution of 1848, supply became a matter of the private sector. The newly founded federal state had to intervene for the first time in the interests of national economic supply in 1853/54 when the Austrian authorities breached their treaty with Ticino and imposed an export ban.

With industrialization in the second half of the 19th century, mining disappeared and the livestock and dairy farming displaced grain production and the bread supply became scarce. The Franco-German War led to short-term supply bottlenecks for coal, iron, petrol and colonial goods. With the purchase of grain by the military department to feed the civilian population in the event of war, the state began to store it for the first time in 1892.

First World War and the interwar period

Rationing well from 1918, Zurich-Wipkingen
Zurich 1916: reduced potato tax

A few weeks before the start of the First World War , the Federal Council concluded treaties with Germany and France to ensure the import of grain and coal after the mobilization. The missing war economy had to be built up at short notice. The Federal Office for Grain Supply (later the Bread Office), established in 1914 within the Military Department , was subordinated directly to the Federal Council in September 1918 as the Federal War Food Office (KEA, first civil supply authority) and in 1922 integrated into the new Federal Grain Administration (since 1993 in the Federal Office for Agriculture).

During the war, various new offices such as the Dairy Office and the Office for Industrial War Economics were established. So that neutral Switzerland could not prefer one of the two warring parties with its exports, the Federal Council had to monitor Swiss foreign trade from 1915 to 1920 for the Central Powers (Swiss trust agency for the surveillance of goods traffic) and the Triple Entente ( Société suisse de surveillance économique ). In order not to endanger the vital imports, Switzerland had to bow to this surveillance regime.

In order to be able to avert rationing , the Federal Council introduced the grain monopoly with the obligation to keep stocks (1915) and issued restrictions, quotas and cultivation measures (increase in self-sufficiency from 45 to 50%). Germany's announcement of the renewed unrestricted submarine war in February 1917 gave rise to the introduction of rationing from March 1917 to 1920. After tough negotiations, the German Army Command approved an exception for ships flying the Swiss flag to the port of Sète (grain import). The late rationing could no longer prevent the inflationary doubling of consumer prices due to the shortage of supply by the end of the war.

After the end of the war, all measures apart from securing the grain supply were lifted. The grain monopoly was rejected by the people in 1926 and approved again in 1929 in a weakened form. At the end of the 1920s, the federal government set up a supply of bread grain for the first time in response to the food shortage after World War I. The mills were obliged to hold compulsory private grain stores.

In 1937 a section for war economics was introduced (military department) and Paul Keller (1898–1956) was appointed as a delegate for war economics (economics department) to prepare for war economics. The Federal Law on Ensuring National Supply of April 1938 authorized the Federal Council to take measures (state access to private supplies and means of production) even in uncertain times of peace and when there was a threat of war in neighboring countries.

Second World War

Monument "Cultivation Battle"
Ship Calanda, Lisbon May 1941

During the Second World War , thanks to the power of attorney resolution of August 30, 1939, the Federal Council was able to secure the national economic supply by all means of the war economy (rationing, cultivation battles, building up the deep sea fleet , trade agreements) and thanks to the preparations made before the war, the majority. A number of new offices helped him, such as the Federal War Food Office (1939–1947, with ten sections) under Ernst Feisst (1897–1968). The Central Office for War Economics (Federal Department of Economic Affairs) coordinated state interventions by the War Economics Offices until 1948.

Thanks to the Wahlen plan (cultivation battle) prepared by Friedrich Traugott Wahlen since 1937 and the rationing, Switzerland's level of self-sufficiency in food (SVG) increased from 52% to 70% between 1940 and 1945.

Post War and Cold War

With the entry into force of the economic articles revised in 1936 in the Federal Constitution, the Federal Council was given the authority to intervene in the freedom of trade if there was a risk of war. In 1948 a shadow organization was set up in case of war. When the Korean War caused a shortage of raw materials in Switzerland, the parliament decided on more far-reaching, temporary measures.

The shipping law passed in 1953 allowed the federal government to requisition or buy Swiss ocean-going ships for national supply. With the Federal Law on Economic Provision for War of 1955, the first comprehensive pension law in Switzerland, compulsory stocks were introduced alongside other intervention measures .

Flour sack "Federal Grain Administration 1957"

The oil price crisis of 1973 ( Yom Kippur War , boycott threats by OPEC ) showed that the national economic supply was geared too much towards conflicts in Europe and that supply disruptions due to other events (boycotts, blackmail, bad harvests, strikes) were not given enough consideration. The Federal Council reacted, among other things, with driving bans on Sundays, and in 1973 the national economic supply was embedded in the overall defense concept (security policy). In addition, Switzerland joined the International Energy Agency in 1974 to take joint action against the oil crisis.

In March 1980 the people approved the federal resolution on the reorganization of national supply, which expanded the previous economic national defense to include comprehensive economic national supply. The federal law on economic national supply (Landesversorgungsgesetz LVS) of 1982 based on this gives the federal government the authority to take state supply measures in the event of war and power-political threats, as well as in the event of severe shortages . Its main tasks include keeping stocks (compulsory stocks, household supplies), management (allocation, rationing) and ensuring services (transports, labor). As a supplementary measure, spatial planning (definition of crop rotation areas) and agricultural policy should ensure that agricultural production could be converted to more plant-based foods within three years and that the level of self-sufficiency (60% in 1994) could be increased.

In the 1990s, the redefinition of Swiss security policy (end of the Cold War ) and the effects of European integration brought about a strategic realignment of national economic supply (compulsory stock to six months, reduced to four months in 2004, grain articles from 1929 canceled). In 2013, the revision of the State Supply Act LVG of 1982 was initiated (objectives: ensuring supply in the event of severe shortages regardless of the cause, bringing forward the time of intervention, increasing resilience and crisis resistance).

Federal Office for National Economic Supply BWL

Emergency supplies in the household

As of 2016, Switzerland sources around 100% of its raw materials, 80% of its energy, 40% of its food and 70% of its medicines and raw materials for medicinal products from abroad. Events of all kinds, from technical faults to political tensions in the countries of origin, can interrupt the route of important goods to Switzerland. Switzerland's inland location increases its dependence on other countries and requires efficient transport systems that are vulnerable (high or low water levels in the Rhine, pipelines and power lines that are prone to failure). Since the end of the 1980s, scenarios such as natural disasters , bio-terrorism , epidemics , strikes or technical and economic difficulties have come to the fore in preventive planning and the inventory requirements estimates based on them.

The tasks of the business administration are laid down in the federal constitution in Article 102 national supply:

“ The federal government ensures that the country is supplied with essential goods and services in the event of threats from power politics or war, as well as in severe shortages that the economy is unable to deal with itself. He takes precautionary measures. If necessary, it can deviate from the principle of economic freedom. »

- Federal Constitution Article 102

Due to the constitutional mandate for security of supply, the Business Administration ensures, in close cooperation with the private sector, that short-term supply bottlenecks cannot cause any significant disruptions for the population and the economy. In this way, it ensures that important goods are stored in Switzerland (compulsory storage) and distributed in an orderly manner in the event of bottlenecks, that there is enough cargo space available in the event of transport problems or that the lights do not go out in a power shortage . The Business Administration informs business and the population on their website about changes in the event of possible threats (globalization, electricity bottlenecks, effects of just-in-time production , etc.) to security of supply and possible security measures by the federal government, business and private individuals (crisis resistance, emergency stocks , transport logistics) .

The organization of the national economic supply is based on the militia principle and is headed at federal level by a delegate in a secondary position who must come from the economy. The delegate leads the entire preparatory measures of the organization, which consists of the business administration as a staff body and a militia organization of around 300 cadres from the private sector and other administrative branches. The militia organization is divided into six basic service areas: nutrition, energy, therapeutic products, information and communication technologies, transport and industry. In the cantons and communes, experts are available to implement the measures ordered by the Confederation in the event of major cultivation.

The business administration works according to the principles of subsidiarity (primacy of the economy), cooperation (militia principle) and networking (local, national, international). The tasks of the national economic supply consist of ensuring adequate preparation and coping with supply bottlenecks, with the focus on securing the supply of essential goods and services.

The process for dealing with bottlenecks is carried out as follows: The area concerned carries out a situation assessment (is there a bottleneck?), The area proposes the approval of the prepared measures to the delegate, the delegate submits a corresponding application to the Federal Council, and the Federal Council decides the approval of these measures, and the economy carries out the approved measures.

Various instruments can be used depending on the severity and duration of a supply bottleneck: The most important supply control measure is the release of stocks (compulsory stocks) by ordinance if the economy can no longer ensure the supply of important basic goods. Further possible measures are import relief, export restrictions and production control.

Demand control measures come into play if major supply bottlenecks persist despite the supply control measures. The aim is to reduce the consumption of goods that have become scarce and to distribute the goods that are still available as needed (instruments: targeted consumption restrictions, quotas, rationing).

literature

Web links

Commons : Economic national supply  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Federal law on national economic supply (National Supply Act, LVG) of 1982, as of January 2013. In: Website of the Swiss government.
  2. ↑ Federal Council adopts dispatch on the revision of the State Supply Act. In: Federal Administration website. 3rd September 2014.
  3. ^ [1] Maurice Cottier: History of the national economic supply since the founding of the federal state. Federal Office for National Economic Supply, special issue 2011 (PDF; 1.98 MB).
  4. ^ Report on national economic supply 2009–2012. Federal Office for National Economic Supply BWL. In: Website of the municipality of Brienz (PDF; 3 MB).
  5. ↑ Silje Christine Sartori: Organization and control of the fulfillment of state tasks with a special focus on the national economic supply (WL). Master's thesis, University of Bern, Wabern 2013 (PDF; 971 kB).