Swiss traditional parties block Greens from newly elected government

The Swiss Parliament reelected on Wednesday (13 November) all incumbent members of the Federal Council, the Swiss government, with members from the four traditional governing parties – blocking the hopeful Greens out.

The seven-member cabinet includes two members of the centre-left SP/PS, two members of the right-wing SVP/UDC, two members of the liberal FDP/PLR, and one member of the centre-right Centre Party.

The Greens’ official candidate, Gerhard Andrey, failed in his challenge to take one of the two seats held by the liberal FDP/PLR.

The seven members must publicly support the decisions they reach as a collegial body. As the Parliament cannot remove the Government and vice-versa, this election will shape the Government cabinet for the next four years.

Viola Amherd (The Center-EPP) has been elected President of the Swiss Confederation and Karin Keller-Sutter (The Liberals-ALDE) as her Vice-President, both for one year starting in January.

The Swiss Presidency rotates every year, with the longest-standing member of the government becoming vice president and then a year later president of the Swiss Confederation.

Limited environmental representation

The Greens expressed dissatisfaction with the so-called ‘Magic Formula’, a tacit agreement among the four traditionally biggest parties that consists of allocating two seats each to the three biggest parties, and one to the fourth.

The Swiss Parliament is divided between the lower house made up of 200 directly elected members and 46 councillors of the states representing the cantons (upper house).

They argued that environmentalist groups should be represented in the government as the two green parties – the Greens (26 seats) and Green Liberals (11 seats) – hold altogether 37 seats in both chambers. The Greens argue that the Liberals, with only two more seats (39 in total), hold 2 seats in the Federal Council while environmentalist groups have none. The Green-Liberals officially supported, though, the Liberal candidate Ignazio Cassis.

In total, the Center (DM/LC-EPP) also has 44 seats, making it the third biggest force. Hence, they could have claimed back a second seat, but their president repeatedly told the media in the last months the party would not destabilise the institutions and would not vote off an incumbent Federal Councilor.

EU-Swiss cooperation agreement

The newly re-elected Swiss government will have to resume talks with the EU towards a wide-ranging cooperation agreement after it suddenly scrapped years of negotiations in 2021, as the Commission and Switzerland continued exploratory talks for a full association again this year.

A good omen for EU-Swiss relations is the only replacement within the government, as all the other six ministers stay the same. Socialist Beat Jans replaces Alain Berset, who in the last years has sided closer to the opposition, against EU integration, due to his links with trade unions which are demanding more concessions from Brussels and want to avoid wage dumping, SWI swissinfo reported.

Contrarily, Jans was in the government of Basle-Town, one of the most European canton due to its proximity to Germany and France, making him knowledgeable with the details of the complex “Switzerland-EU” dossier.

“In the EU dossier, the Federal Council should have done more to ensure that the special-interest groups find a solution,” he said during an interview.

However, the newly elected government will have the difficult task of finding a satisfactory agreement, as the most powerful party, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party is strongly opposed to the EU.

Edited by Max Griera and Nathalie Weatherald