Bursting dams, Green Party sadness and Jositsch’s trainer pants: these five moments reveal Switzerland’s slide to the right
The SVP won the 2023 elections and is capitalizing on this, especially in the National Council. Leftists, on the other hand, rely on a historical trump card.
It was at the first commission meeting that Aline Trede was made aware that she had lost the 2023 elections. The tables were arranged in a large U, says the parliamentary group leader of the Green Party, and the SVP took up an entire side of them. “I suddenly realized how difficult this legislation would be,” she says.
New balance of power in Bern: The Federal Palace is moving to the right.
About a year ago, the Swiss electorate set a new course. The Greens lost many votes but few seats; the Green Liberals suffered the opposite. The SP gained and the SVP even more; after repeated recounts, the center trumped the Liberals in terms of National Council seats, but not in terms of voter favor – which, depending on the interpretation, has very great or no significance for the composition of the Federal Council.
The last session of the first legislative year ended on Friday. It was a merger that once again made many people aware of the new balance of power under the Federal Palace dome. So it’s time for an initial assessment: How have the federal elections steered politics in new directions?
A “dam burst” with an announcement
In the December 2023 session, the SVP will test its new strength for the first time. In a motion, National Councilor Gregor Rutz demands that Switzerland show more toughness towards Afghan women. The previous summer, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) decided to make it easier to grant asylum to fleeing women and girls from Afghanistan.
National Councilor Gregor Rutz demanded that Switzerland show more toughness towards Afghan women.
The center and the FDP are hesitant. They send the business back to the commission for revision. In May, when the motion came back to the table, the decision was even closer: only one vote was missing to get the matter through the National Council. The SVP is fuming and increasing the pressure on Asylum Minister Beat Jans, who is continuing the “asylum chaos” seamlessly, as Rutz said at a press conference.
The other bourgeois parties are also feeling the increase in frequency. First, FDP President Thierry Burkart ventures out of cover. In an interview with the “NZZ” he announced a new position paper. It is entitled: “Stop illegal migration” and is scheduled to be passed in mid-October. “We have always had the motto ‘tough but fair’. Now we have simply accentuated this again,” says Burkart. “Illegal migration is a problem that poses a major challenge to our country.”
FDP President Thierry Burkart: “Illegal migration is a problem that poses a major challenge to our country.”
The middle also goes along. In the extraordinary asylum session in the fall, the two parties helped the SVP’s proposals to be successful for the first time. The SP and the Greens howl: The ban on family reunification of temporarily admitted refugees contradicts the human rights convention and the approach is a “breaking of the dam”. With the help of a last-minute campaign and a petition on the scale of a popular initiative, they are postponing a final decision by Parliament until next December. There is little to suggest that the mood in Parliament will change by then.
Harmony in security policy – but where does the money come from?
The most meaningful dossier of the first legislative year is the army. Nowhere is the civil consensus greater than in the conviction that national defense needs more resources quickly.
Even the SP has taken a step to the right on this issue: Before the summer holidays, SP Councilor of States Franziska Roth is part of the women’s group that wants to make a 15 billion dollar deal for the benefit of the army and aid to Ukraine. And in the fall, Priska Seiler-Graf caused public astonishment and green horror in the National Council chamber when she announced the SP’s approval of a 4 billion higher payment limit for national defense. However, both plans, like many others, fail.
Nowhere is the civil consensus greater than in the conviction that national defense needs more resources quickly.
Because nowhere do the civil differences currently seem greater than when it comes to money. In the in-house podcast, SP co-president Cédric Wermuth says: “Before the elections, I knew how the center, FDP and SVP would position themselves. Since then, the decisions in the army debate have been going back and forth.”
FDP President Burkart sees the blame on one party: “The center politicizes for the army on some days of the week and against it on others,” he says. Sometimes the party votes for higher army finances and savings in development cooperation, then again it changes course between the councils. “Surprisingly often, the center agrees with the SP and helps the left to gain majorities, especially in social and health policy.”
Philipp Mathias Bregy, parliamentary group leader of the Center Party, contradicts this assessment: “We came out of the elections stronger. We want to show that there are no solutions without the middle.” It is not always easy for the party to deal with this responsibility. “The social component is important to us in every business,” says Bregy. However, the differences between the National Council and the Council of States factions have clearly decreased.
Even if Parliament ultimately decides to increase the army budget by 4 billion francs in the autumn session, the center will only have to really show its colors in the budget discussion. The FDP and SVP take the position that no additional revenue is needed to increase the army budget and that cuts in, among other things, federal personnel and development cooperation are sufficient. When it comes to this funding issue, the center operates in a similar way to the SP – so the blockade has not yet been resolved despite unity in security policy.
A court ruling angers Parliament
On April 9th, the world will look at the Swiss Confederation. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upholds a lawsuit alleging that Switzerland violated the right to life of climate seniors. The SP and the Greens celebrate the verdict as historic.
An SP Council of States, on the other hand, soon turns its back. A few days later, Daniel Jositsch compared the ECHR to a pair of trainer pants: the law applies, even if you gain or lose five kilos. “But at some point that’s no longer possible. That’s exactly how it is here,” he says in an interview with the NZZ, which many interpret as a reaction to his failed candidacy for the Federal Council a few weeks earlier. But Jositsch doesn’t let up.
On April 9, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld a lawsuit alleging that Switzerland had violated the right to life of climate seniors.
In the Legal Commission of the Council of States, he advocates for Parliament to send a protest note to Strasbourg and finds many civil allies for this. Even if climate policy is the focus, the discussion quickly turns to Switzerland’s sovereignty. According to the prevailing opinion, the ECHR is overstepping its authority with its ruling on climate seniors and thus undermining its acceptance. The SVP sets the tone: In a media release, it criticizes “this interference by foreign judges in the strongest possible terms” and calls for Switzerland to leave the Council of Europe.
On June 5th, the Stöckli debated a statement in which it was stated “that Switzerland sees no reason to further comply with the Court’s ruling of April 9, 2024, since Switzerland’s previous and ongoing climate policy efforts undermine human rights Requirements of the judgment are met.”
Greens and Green Liberals in the rain
“I’ve been in Parliament for a few years. But I’ve never experienced what’s going on here before.” The statement comes from Bastien Girod, Green National Councilor, and is dated mid-March. In the spring session, Parliament will negotiate the Environmental Protection Act. It’s about aircraft noise, apartments along motorways and a ban on speeding 30 km/h in cities.
Last but not least, the FDP shows that the green wave from the last legislature is over. This is also due to personnel castling: For a long time, representatives of a green FDP course that former President Petra Gössi had taken sat on the Environment and Energy Commission. With Susanne de Montmollin and Christian Wasserfallen, two liberals who are more critical on climate issues are now in charge. “It’s fatal for us: with nine SVP representatives and three liberals, it often only takes one vote to achieve a legal majority in the commission,” says Green party leader Trede.
The group demonstrates its dominance several times. In March, Wasserfallen applied at short notice to remove the VOC tax from the Environmental Protection Act. VOCs are volatile gases contained in solvents and can lead to high levels of ozone pollution. It was only after a referendum threat that parliament changed course in September and defused its changes.
But new trouble for the Greens is only a matter of time. After the people’s clear yes to the Electricity Act, efforts are underway in the Environment Commission of the Council of States to restrict the association’s right to complain for hydropower projects decided at the round table. SP energy politician Roger Nordmann can also gain something from a corresponding application for the so-called acceleration decree: He is also in favor of restrictions on the association’s right to complain, “especially where the complainants are primarily concerned with delaying and preventing investments. This is an abuse of the law,” he says.
The path to more nuclear power
The rifts are even deeper when it comes to another ecological issue: nuclear power. The Federal Council announces the end of the summer holidays with a bang: it wants to submit a counter-proposal to the blackout initiative, in which the ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants should be abolished.
View of the Leibstadt nuclear power plant in Aargau, photographed on September 2, 2021.
In doing so, he underlines that a strong SVP-FDP axis comes into play in the Federal Council, even more than in parliament – with Energy Minister Albert Rösti (SVP) and Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter (FDP) in the main roles.
It is often forgotten that the nuclear comeback was paved by parliamentary preparations. In March, the Council of States adopted a postulate from FDP President Burkart that wanted to examine the continued operation of existing nuclear power plants. This also includes the replacement of reactor pressure vessels, which is currently not compatible with the ban on new construction. The National Council had scuttled a similar initiative by the FDP shortly before the elections, also with votes from the FDP.
“Renewable energies have been strengthened in recent years, which was a concern for many in the party. The FDP now agrees more than ever that nuclear power is also needed for a secure energy supply,” says Burkart.
National Councilor Susanne Vincenz-Stauffacher, for example, once resisted nuclear power. Now she is defending the new course in the SRF “Arena”. It is an expression of the fact that he has brought his party into line in the Bundestag.
Countertrend in votes
A counter-trend to parliament can currently be observed at the ballot box. With the 13th AHV pension and the no to the BVG reform, the left achieved clear victories. This confirms a historical picture: the yes to the mass immigration initiative or the ban on veiling from the SVP kitchen came after shifts to the left in parliament, as well as left-wing defeats on corporate responsibility or the increase in the women’s retirement age.
In legislatures that tend to be more “right-wing”, there are left-wing voting successes such as the yes to the nuclear phase-out, the no to the middle-class corporate tax reform III or the no to the SVP’s No-Billag initiative.
Nothing will change that quickly. The Greens and the SP are increasingly seeking their veto power among the people. Be it federal finances, the nuclear power plant comeback or the acceleration decree: the idea of a referendum has been with Parliament in the first year of this new legislature.
