BERN - The Federal Council will recommend that parliament reject the popular initiative for a sustainable and future-oriented financial centre, and it will not offer a counter-proposal. The decision came at Wednesday's meeting. The finance department must produce the dispatch by 16 April 2027.
The initiative would write an environmental duty into the constitution for Swiss financial firms, including business abroad and along the value chain. It would ban financing and insurance that develop new fossil-fuel reserves or expand extraction of existing ones. It would also create a supervisory body that can issue orders and impose sanctions. Pension schemes and social-security institutions are inside the net, not only banks.
Why ministers say the law already does the job
The cabinet's case is that the aim is already in statute. The Climate and Innovation Act sets a net-zero target for 2050 and the alignment of financial flows. The Climate Disclosures Ordinance, in force since 2024, makes larger companies, including financial institutions, publish a transition plan. Further minimum rules for those plans are being drafted. The government pointed back to its sustainable-finance report of December 2022.
The bans ministers will not copy
Four extras failed the cabinet's test. An immediate duty to align foreign business with biodiversity targets, before international standards exist. A financing ban that, in Bern's view, would be picked up by foreign providers. A new supervisor, paid by the Confederation or by fees. And the reach into pension funds, which ministers say would narrow the investments those boards are allowed to choose. The same day, the cabinet opened a separate consultation on bank crisis rules, in our companion report.