BERN - Step by step, the biggest foreign policy project in Bern is moving through the machinery. On Thursday the foreign policy committee of the National Council approved the wage protection provisions of the new EU package, the chapter meant to shield Swiss salaries from posted-worker undercutting as the bilateral treaties deepen. In doing so, the committee followed the line taken by the Council of States when it finished its own work on the package in September.
The committee calls strong relations with the European Union absolutely necessary for Switzerland, and it explicitly welcomed the compromise on wage protection negotiated with the Swiss trade unions. That welcome matters. Union backing, or at least union silence, is the difference between a package that survives the campaign and one that dies the death of the 2021 framework agreement.
The referendum question is still open
One significant decision remains: the committee has yet to settle what kind of referendum the package should be subject to. The choice between a mandatory constitutional referendum and an optional referendum is not procedural decoration. It shapes the majority needed at the ballot box, the calendar for the vote and, in the end, the strategy of both supporters and opponents. The outline of that fight is already visible, with the SVP preparing its campaign and the business lobby weighing its role, as our briefing on the package's three flashpoints set out.
What is no longer in doubt is the direction of travel. Both chambers have now looked at the wage protection chapter and found it acceptable, and the government can tell Brussels that the parliamentary phase is advancing on schedule.
December becomes the test
The full National Council is expected to begin its debates in the December session. That debate will show how far the package's supporters are willing to go to hold the centre together, and how loudly the right is prepared to campaign against a deal it has already branded a capitulation. For the Federal Council, the arithmetic is simple: keep the unions on board, keep the wage protection clause intact, and get to the referendum with the broadest possible coalition. Thursday's committee vote did exactly what Bern needed it to do.