The week in Switzerland
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Were you among the 21% of Swiss Abroad who voted on Sunday? Would you cast your ballot if there were a vote on Switzerland’s tariff deal with the US? According to a survey, at present such a vote would be comfortably rejected.
Also this week, what links the assassinated US political activist Charlie Kirk, the landslide-hit Swiss village of Blatten and footballer Alisha Lehmann?
Two initiatives – on taxing the super-rich and compulsory civic duty – failed spectacularly at the ballot box on Sunday, but the Swiss Abroad were slightly less hostile to them than the electorate as a whole.
The initiative to introduce a 50% tax on the inheritance of the super-rich to finance climate measures was given short shrift by 78.3% of the electorate and all 26 cantons. As for the Swiss Abroad – at least in the 12 cantons that provide detailed statistics on their vote – “only” 67% rejected it.
Political scientist Martina Mousson said this reflected the typical voting behaviour of the diaspora, which is generally more left-wing and more urban than the resident population. She noted that the percentage of approval by the Swiss Abroad was closer to that seen in Swiss cities.
The second initiative, which wanted to replace compulsory military service with a civic duty extended to women, was rejected by more than 84% of voters – one of the biggest defeats in history and even worse than expected. Four out of five Swiss voters abroad also voted against it.
The Swiss Abroad wouldn’t have been affected by this reform. Are they afraid of being so? “Perhaps, but I think it’s really the basic idea that hasn’t been accepted,” Mousson said. “Both the left and the right were against it, and in the end no one was really in favour anymore.”
Sunday’s issues didn’t particularly grab voters. Just under 21% of the Swiss Abroad cast their ballots, compared to an average turnout of 24% over the past five years. Overall turnout was 43%, six percentage points lower than the average of 49%.
If held today, a vote on Switzerland’s tariff deal with the United States would fail: 69% of respondents to a survey oppose it.
The survey, published by newspaper Blick on Wednesday, interviewed around 9,300 people at the end of November, a couple of weeks after Switzerland and the US signed a joint declaration of intent to reduce American tariffs on most Swiss products from 39% to 15%.
Swiss concessions were not well received by most respondents: the waiver of restrictions on the flow of data to the US went too far for 80% of them. Promises such as not introducing a digital tax, the duty-free import of limited quantities of meat from the US, the investment of CHF200 billion ($250 billion) by Swiss companies in the US and the authorisation of American pick-up trucks in Switzerland also met with little acceptance.
Greater cooperation with the US on sanctions against third parties faced less opposition, but this also went too far for 55% of respondents.
Whether the Swiss electorate will have a say on a deal with the US remains to be seen.
In a debate on Thursday, Swiss public radio SRF asked “Did Switzerland give Trump too much?” The debate was between a parliamentarian from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, which has congratulated Economics Minister Guy Parmelin on the deal, and a parliamentarian from the left-wing Green Party, which has called it a “subjugation treaty”.
The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) is accused of going too far with its mass surveillance of telecommunications. The bulk interception of cross-border communication is not compatible with fundamental rights, the Federal Administrative Court has ruled.
To combat terrorism in particular, the FIS analyses part of the traffic of private messages on the internet, Swiss public television RTS explained on Wednesday. This surveillance is based on an automated keyword-based system. When a message meets certain criteria, it is examined by the Electronic Operations Centre, a service attached to the army.
“It’s therefore possible that certain messages sent to family or friends have already been consulted by a government employee. But it’s impossible to know for sure,” RTS wrote.
In the case of purely domestic communication – if both the transmitter and the recipient are located in Switzerland – the recorded signals may not be processed. “The problem stems from the way the internet itself works,” RTS said. “A message sent to your neighbour doesn’t really stay Swiss. It often passes through a server abroad. National borders are blurred on the internet.”
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court called on lawmakers to “remedy the shortcomings” as part of the ongoing revision of the Federal Intelligence Act.
Assassinated US political activist Charlie Kirk, landslide-hit Swiss village Blatten and the Israel-Iran war topped the list of Swiss Google searches in 2025.
This shows that Switzerland was preoccupied with both local disasters and global conflicts, the tech company wrote on Thursday. For its annual review, Google analyses the terms for which search interest has risen sharply compared to the previous year.
When it comes to Swiss individuals, interest rose most sharply in the new defence minister, Martin Pfister. Comedian Hazel Brugger, who co-presented the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, and Swiss Moto3 driver Noah Dettwiler came second and third.
The international person about whom Swiss googlers were most curious was German rapper Haftbefehl, who appeared in a Netflix documentary.
Google also listed the most-asked questions. The top questions with a Swiss connection were: Why isn’t Alisha Lehmann playing in Euro 2025? (She wasn’t match fit following an injury.) How many cows are there in Switzerland? (About 670,000.)
The week ahead
An exhibition focusing on female contemporary Aboriginal artists opens at the Musée Rath in Geneva on Wednesday. It runs until April 19.
Thursday is UN International Mountain Day, whose goal is to “raise awareness about the role that mountainous regions play in the lives of people and their importance to our planet”.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
