The Federal Council has decided that Switzerland\u2019s new package of bilateral agreements with the European Union should be subject to an optional referendum, meaning approval by a simple majority of voters would be sufficient.\n<\/p>\n
In its view, this is in line with the practice followed for the Bilateral Agreements I and II which, from a democratic perspective, \u201crepresents the most appropriate solution\u201d.<\/p>\n
The so-called \u201cCompass Initiative\u201d, launched in 2024, calls for the package of Swiss-EU agreements to be put to a vote for approval by Swiss voters and the cantons. Its supporters, entrepreneurs from German-speaking Switzerland, want voters and cantons to approve those international treaties that provide for the adoption of important provisions laying down legal rules.<\/p>\n
Believing this initiative would threaten Switzerland\u2019s credibility in foreign policy as well as its economic standing, the government rejected the proposal on Thursday without putting forward a counter-proposal. On Wednesday, it had already expressed its opposition to a commission\u2019s proposal calling for a vote requiring a double majority of the people and the cantons.<\/p>\n
Securing a yes vote in the referendum on Bilateral Agreements III would be much more difficult if a majority of cantons were required, as the smaller, more conservative cantons tend to vote no on issues relating to European integration. According to certain political experts, a popular majority of around 55% would be needed to secure a cantonal majority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Council has decided that Switzerland\u2019s new package of bilateral agreements with the European Union should be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[37763,1211,17],"class_list":["post-115101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-beat-swiss-diaspora","tag-home-swiss-abroad","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117089033460152674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}