Swiss parliament supports government in US tariff talks

Petra Gössi and Carlo Sommaruga. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss government has received backing from parliament for the planned negotiations with the United States.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Following the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, the Senate’s sister committee also approved the negotiating mandate on Tuesday.

The Senate committee approved the mandate on Tuesday after an in-depth discussion by ten votes to zero with two abstentions, the committee’s president, Carlo Sommaruga, told the media in Bern.

+ US tariff reduction will save Swiss firms: business federation

There had been numerous questions about the draft mandate, he said. Economics Minister Guy Parmelin and State Secretary Helene Budliger Artieda had answered most of them satisfactorily.

Sommaruga and committee vice-president Petra Gössi did not reveal whether the committee is demanding adjustments to the draft mandate and what these are. Sommaruga said details would weaken Switzerland’s negotiating position.

Adapted from German by AI/ts

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]