Do you live in French Polynesia as a Swiss expatriate? If so, there’s a good chance you’ve had official visitors from Switzerland over the past five years. Swiss parliamentarians travelled to the South Pacific archipelago three times during this period.
The Swiss delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie undertook a total of 43 trips over five years, covering around 318,100 kilometres by air. As well as French Polynesia, destinations included Montreal, Dakar, Tirana and Can Tho in Vietnam. The trips cost a total of CHF463,697 ($570,000).
This is now attracting criticism. Parliamentarian Hans-Peter Portmann from the centre-right Radical-Liberal Party does not see the costs as the primary issue, but rather the duplication of effort with other parliamentary delegations. In his view, a shared language as the sole criterion for a parliamentary assembly does not offer significant added value. While parliamentary diplomacy is important, he argues, it must focus on organisations that are central to Switzerland’s interests.
Carlo Sommaruga, a senator from the left-wing Social Democratic Party who chairs the delegation, takes a different view. He says Switzerland can work alongside parliamentarians from over 90 countries within the Francophonie to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law. What’s more, he adds, the delegation has been involved in areas such as combating human trafficking and promoting education in crisis-hit countries. However, as the SonntagsZeitung writes, only two reports have been produced since 2022.