BERN - The Council of States voted 29 to 15 on Monday evening to enter into the new Switzerland-EU treaty package. The decision does not approve the agreements. It allows the upper house to debate them line by line through Wednesday.
The general debate opened at 14:38 and closed with the vote at 20:41. Every member of the upper house had already seen the file in committee. Preliminary work ran to 111 hours over 39 sitting days. Even so, the entry debate was long. Social Democrats warned in the morning that parts of the Centre and the FDP might try to sink the package. The SVP called a Bundesplatz protest and described the text as a treaty of submission.
How the 29 to 15 vote divided
The seven-member SVP group voted against entry as a bloc. Four German-speaking Centre senators and four from the FDP joined them. On the other side were the seven Social Democrats, three Greens, the Green Liberal representative, ten members of the Centre and eight from the FDP. The foreign affairs committee had already recommended entry by 9 to 3, with one abstention, and had rejected sending the bill back to the Federal Council by 10 to 2.
A delicate task.
That was how committee chair Carlo Sommaruga (SP, Geneva) described opening the debate. He said the text was already a compromise among parties, cantons and social partners, and that rejection would erode the agreements Switzerland already has. Marco Chiesa (SVP, Ticino) warned that the package would put Switzerland under EU jurisdiction and weaken the rights of voters.
Three federal councillors, then the clauses
President Guy Parmelin, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and Justice Minister Beat Jans attended, an unusual concentration of the cabinet for a single afternoon. Council president Stefan Engler (Centre, Graubuenden) asked members to keep speeches short because the detail would run until Wednesday afternoon.
Senators cannot amend the treaty text itself. They can decide the domestic implementation and the referendum rule. The Federal Council wants an optional referendum and a simple popular majority. The SVP wants a mandatory vote and a double majority of people and cantons. The Centre is waiting. Those choices are on Tuesday's order paper. The government's August line on the referendum is in the 12 August note.