Parliament approves proposal to make Swiss army more flexible

Parliament shelves plan to make the armed forces more flexible Keystone-SDA

The Swiss army will be more flexible to meet the needs of its personnel. On Wednesday, the two chambers of Parliament accepted the proposal on the draft amendment to the Armed Forces Act.

The aim of the draft is to ensure that the armed forces are adequately staffed and to meet the need to reconcile military service with the professional and private lives of service personnel.

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The two chambers were divided on one final point. The draft authorised the Swiss government to call up a maximum of 18 armed servicemen for service of more than three weeks without seeking parliamentary approval, compared with the current maximum of 10 for the same period.

The Senate initially wanted to remove the limit on the number of military personnel, before proposing a threshold of 50. The House of Representatives wanted to keep it at 18. As a compromise the limit was set at 36 military personnel.

Adapted from French by DeepL/ac

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