Two initiatives on wind turbine construction launched in Switzerland

The Swiss are expected to vote on the two initiatives in 2-3 years. Keystone / Valentin Flauraud

According to the initiators, the federal popular initiatives “Against the destruction of our forests by wind turbines” and “For the protection of direct democracy in wind farms” have received enough signatures to be put on the ballot.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

According to the Federal Chancellery, 107,693 signatures were valid for the forest protection initiative and 106,010 for the municipal protection initiative, according to a statement issued on Monday evening. This means that the Swiss people will be able to vote on the issues in two to three years.

The signatures for the two popular initiatives were submitted to the Federal Chancellery in Bern on July 25. Among other things, the initiators of the two popular initiatives had their sights set on the acceleration decree, which parliament finalised at the end of the autumn session last week.

With the acceleration decree, the federal government wants to streamline the procedures for planning and building large renewable energy plants. Parliament wants to involve the local communities: the municipalities should have a say as long as the cantons do not stipulate otherwise in their legislation.

Adapted from German by DeepL/jdp

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].

News