Around 400 delegates adopted a financial position paper on social financial policy and the abolition of the debt brake at the SP party conference in Davos GR. They also confirmed the party leadership. Co-President Cédric Wermuth called for solidarity with all victims of the Middle East conflict.
The war in the Middle East is a spiral of hatred and violence that spirals towards complete destruction, said Wermuth in his opening speech at the Davos Congress Center and called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and an end to war crimes on all sides.
There is neither an alternative to Israel’s right to self-determination and existence, nor an alternative to Palestine’s right to exist. The solidarity of the Social Democrats goes to the victims and their families, and also to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and atheist people who took to the streets in the Middle East almost every day for peace and understanding.
In doing so, the co-president took a stand against the Juso, which had recently called for a boycott of Israel. The SP Young Party recently supported the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, which is partly considered anti-Semitic, and called for a boycott of goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
However, the focus at the first of the two-day party conference was on the financial position paper. It calls for the long-term abolition of the debt brake and investments in purchasing power, equality and climate protection.
In the opinion of the Social Democrats, the scaremongering about a financial collapse and new national debt is baseless. Rather, bourgeois financial policy endangers Switzerland’s prosperity.
Regarding the debt brake, the party executive committee initially suggested a modernization. This is due to political enforceability. Ultimately, the more radical proposal narrowly prevailed.
The proponents of this proposal successfully argued that the debt brake restricts democratic design, provokes unnecessary distribution conflicts and divides society.
In addition to the unanimous re-election of the co-presidium with Mattea Meyer and Cédric Wehrmut, the previous four members of the vice-presidium also made it back to their posts straight away: Zurich National Councilor Jaqueline Badran, Freiburg National Councilor Valérie Piller Carrard, Graubünden National Councilor Jon Pult and the Lucerne National Councilor David Roth.
SP Councilor of States Baptiste Hurni from Neuchâtel has recently joined. He replaces National Councilor Samuel Bendahan from Vaud, who, together with Baselbie National Councilor Samira Marti, forms the co-presidium of the SP federal parliamentary group and therefore already sits on the presidium ex officio.
The delegates also unanimously adopted a resolution from the SP Women, which calls for adequate victim protection. In it they demand that the cantons and the federal government create sufficient shelters and advice centers. These offers should then be made widely known so that those seeking help can also use them. And finally, access to these offers of help should be low-threshold and non-discriminatory.
In this context, the delegates also called for a demonstration at the start of the 16 days against violence against women on November 23rd in Bern.
The focus of the second day of the SP meeting in Davos on Sunday is the pharmaceutical position paper “Drug crisis: SP calls for a public pharmaceutical strategy”. In it, the Social Democrats are calling for the state to take an active regulatory stance, particularly when it comes to setting the price of medicines.
The SP is also demanding that the federal government buy back the Sandoz company. According to the demands of the party leadership, the profits of the pharmaceutical industry should come to an end.
