Student GA will definitely be abolished

There will be no student GA in ten days – politics is powerless

The general student subscription will soon cost a lot more. A petition and two parliamentary proposals did not cause the SwissPass Alliance to reconsider.

The criticisms of the last weeks have brought nothing: from the next time change, which will take place on December 13, 2020, there will be a discount GA student no more. This is confirmed by Thomas Ammann, spokesperson for the Alliance SwissPass organization, at Watson’s request.

The discount, which was officially dubbed “GA Junior for Students”, enabled students between the ages of 25 and 30 to get a discounted general season pass of CHF 2,650 over many years.

But that is over now. The reason for the abolition is that it is a “special case” and leads to unequal treatment within this age group. As a transitional measure, 26-year-old students are offered a CHF 500 “discount” when transitioning to the adult GA travel card.

Parliament waived the right of the federal government to have an opinion

The abolition of the student GA was announced in late June 2020 and sparked protests across Switzerland. The Association of Swiss Student Unions called the procedure “scandalous” and spoke of a “huge threat to equal opportunities”.

The association collected more than 19,000 signatures on a petition. There have also been attempts in parliament to reverse the decision. The National Councilor of the SP, Mathias Reynard, asked critical questions of the Federal Council, and the National Councilor of the CVP, Marco Romano, even suspected a violation of the law. The efforts were unsuccessful.

The reason: Parliament refused to allow the federal government to play a “greater role in tariff matters.” The Federal Council relied on this point of view in its responses to the Reynard and Romano proposals. The state government would have no choice but to express the expectation that the price adjustments will be made “with caution.”

The Minister of Transport, Simonetta Sommaruga, would have addressed this position “regularly” in meetings. It is not clear if he exerted and how much pressure he exerted. Thomas Ammann, a spokesman for Alliance SwissPass, declined to comment on the content of the conversations with representatives of the Sommaruga department. “Such conversations are repeated over and over again,” says Ammann. However, the federal government could not make more than recommendations here, as one is autonomous in setting rates.