Calmy-Rey defends foreigners’ economic record

Keystone

Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey says an election campaign targeting foreigners ignores their contribution to the Swiss economy.

Speaking at the economiesuisse Swiss Business Federation’s annual Economy Day Calmy-Rey also spoke out against wage dumping fears. Other speakers raised concerns over climate policy plans.

Switzerland’s biggest political party, the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, is coming under increasing fire after launching a poster campaign depicting three white sheep booting a black sheep out of the country.

The People’s Party blames foreigners for the growing crime rates in the country and wants foreign criminals thrown out after they have served their sentences together with their families.

Calmy-Rey had previously attacked the campaign as likely to incite racism. She pointed out on Friday that many immigrants have set up successful businesses in Switzerland since the first waves in the nineteenth century.

She highlighted Henri Nestlé, a German national who set up the world’s largest food manufacturer in Switzerland, and the founders of Swiss-Swedish engineering firm ABB, Charles Brown and Walter Boveri.

“What would Nestlé or Brown and Boveri have thought if at that time an election campaign had spoken of people from foreign origins as black sheep?” Calmy-Rey asked. She added that hatred of foreigners is not only socially unacceptable but also unintelligent.

Calmy-Rey said she wants businesses and trade unions to get together to resolve the issue of wage dumping after Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union at the start of the year. She said the emergence of a cheap labour force was creating a barrier between rich and poor.

Energy concerns

She believes it is in the best interests of non-EU member Switzerland to extend its free movement of workers arrangement to Romania and Bulgaria in a nationwide vote.

economiesuisse President Gerold Bührer voiced his concerns that the latest proposals from Energy Minister Moritz Leuenberger to reduce fossil fuel emissions will damage the Swiss economy.

“We cannot solve the challenges of climate change by ignoring economic laws,” he said. Bührer believes industry can solve the problem more efficiently with the aid of technological advances that reduce emissions.

Both he and Markus Akermann, chief executive of cement manufacturing giant Holcim, called for Switzerland to join the EU carbon credit system that allow the worst polluting companies to buy credits from cleaner firms.

Akermann said the scheme, that is also available in other countries around the world, enabled him to cut emissions from Holcim’s Indian operations more efficiently than those in Switzerland.

swissinfo with agencies

In brief

The Swiss Business Federation was created through the merger in 2000 of the Swiss Trade and Industry Association and the economic promotion organisation.

Since its creation, it has attracted more than 30 new members, including Microsoft, IBM and the SWX Swiss Exchange.

The federation plays an important role in the Swiss economy by representing the views of its members to the government and to the public.

Economiesuisse has pledged to trim its annual budget by 25% to SFr13.1 million ($10.9 million) by 2008, with the possibility of further savings in future years.

Campaign criticism

Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin has joined the ranks of those criticising the People’s Party election campaign.

In an interview on public radio, Couchepin likened the campaign to fascist propaganda in Italy under Benito Mussolini in the 1930s.

He said suggestions by the People’s Party that a cabinet seat for Blocher was indispensable for Switzerland’s well-being were “unhealthy”.

However, Couchepin, a member of the centre-right Radical Party, said he was confident that most voters in Switzerland were reasonable enough to form their own opinion.