Swiss Review 6/2019

Swiss Review / November 2019 / No.6 8 Focus “Swiss democracy is improving in quality” At 42 per cent, the National Council now contains more women than ever before. The Helvetia is calling! cross-party campaign masterminded by Swit- zerland’s women’s associations played a significant role in this regard. Project manager Jessica Zuber explains why the election results are historic. “These were the climate elections” Apart from the scientific facts, the election success of the green parties should be motivation for Switzer- land to pursue more ambitious climate targets. This is the view of Swiss climatologist Sonia Seneviratne, who has some recommended reading for the newly elected parliament. “The SP needs a return to pro-European values” We now need fresh impetus to break the impasse over Europe, says Thomas Cottier, chairman of the Switzerland in Europe association, who views the election results as a hint to the Social Democratic Party (SP) that it should stop trying to obstruct pro- gress on a framework deal with the EU. It is hard to tell at this early stage what impact the elections will have on Swiss EU policy, as not all parties in the election campaign were clear on whether Switzerland should sign the framework agreement with the EU that has been on the table for months. This is due to sticky issues such as wage protection. “The clock is ticking,” says Thomas Cottier, Profes- sor Emeritus of European and Inter- national Economic Law at the Univer- sity of Berne and chairman of the pro-EU Switzerland in Europe asso- ciation. Cottier recommends that the Federal Council and the newly The National Council – the large cham- ber – comprises 200 members, of which 84 are now female. The propor- tion of women has risen from 32 to 42 per cent. Female representation in the Council of States – the small cham- ber – will be a lot lower. But, as Jessica Zuber says, “It is an historic election for women.” Zuber, a political scien- tist, headed the Helvetia is calling! campaign by Alliance F, the umbrella organisation of Swiss women’s associ- ations. She notes that Swiss women, who only gained the right to vote in elected parliament “take their cue fromvoters”, who handed a rebuke to Switzerland’s most EU-sceptic party, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). Not only is the SVP against the framework agreement, it alsowants to put an end to freedom of movement through its limitation initiative. “But this policy of obstructionwas rejected at the bal- lot box,” says Cottier, explaining that the Green Liberals (GLP), a party em- phatically in favour of the framework agreement, emerged stronger from the elections. “The seat gains for the GLP can be viewed as an endorsement of this stance,” he says. Cottier inter- Sonia Seneviratne believes that the tremendous increase in seats and vot- ing share achieved by the green par- ties is due to the Swiss people realis- ing that something urgently needs to be done about climate change. “These were definitely the climate elections,” she says. Seneviratne hails from the canton of Vaud and is currently Pro- fessor for Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich. She is also a lead author of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warn about the severe consequences 1971, have increased their parliamen- tary presence in baby steps over the past decades. “The increments were always three to four percentage points,” she says. Voters have now elected almost a quartermorewomen to parliament – a record for left-wing and conservative camps alike. “Swiss democracy is improving in quality, be- cause men and women are nowmore equally represented,” Zuber adds. It is fair to say that this result had been an- ticipated. Never before have so many women stood for election. Women