Art. 87 of the Swiss Constitution1
gives the Confederation the exclusive competence to
legislate in the area of the railways. However, to the extent that these railways are not “of
national importance”,
2
the Confederation shares this authority with the cantons and the
municipalities under general principles of subsidiarity.3 As we will see below, the financing
of the Swiss railways is defined by two opposing tendencies. On the one hand, there is a long
tradition of federalism in Switzerland, which means that lawmakers will generally prefer
governance structures that give the cantons significant power and responsibility.4 On the
other hand, and during the past few decades, there has been increasing pressure from the
electorate to achieve a meaningful shift towards transport by rail, especially when it comes to
Trans-Alpine cargo transport. This is a task that is generally considered as requiring
significant Federal intervention. As a result, we might summarise the next two sections by
saying that these two trends together explain the core of the additional complexity of the
Swiss railway system, when compared to the financing mechanism of comparable countries.
First, however, we will turn to each of these financing mechanisms.