Rising healthcare costs, climate change, immigration. These have been the Swiss people’s biggest concerns in recent months – and the issues politicians focused on during the election campaign. With which they went to get votes.
The people’s representatives have now been elected to the National Council for the next four years. There has been a shift to the right. What does this mean for Swiss climate, migration and health policy? A prediction.
The 2019 elections were dubbed the “climate elections.” The Greens won 17 seats in the National Council, the GLP nine. The “green wave” was followed by numerous climate protection initiatives, especially from the SP and the Greens. However, parliament only accepted one in five environmental proposals, as shown by a data analysis by SRF.
Although Greens, SP and GLP almost always worked together on environmental initiatives, their climate policy struggled in the National Council. With 83 seats together, they were still dependent on votes from the center and the FDP.
Now the Greens, SP and GLP together have only 74 seats in the National Council. They must even more hope to win the support of centrist and FDP politicians for their concerns. This support is highly dependent on the individual personalities in both parties. There are both FDP national councilors such as the re-elected Christian Wasserfallen, who often makes the same decisions on environmental issues as the SVP, and centrist national councilors such as the also re-elected Priska Wismer-Felder, who leans to the left. green camp when it comes to climate policy.
In the field of climate policy, the new legislation will bring less change than expected. The Center and the FDP will be able to push through most proposals that can win a majority – as was the case in the current legislature. With progress from right and left, they retain decision-making power.
The migration policy is the Subject of the SVP, with which she could probably best mobilize voters this year, as many political experts judged after the elections. SVP faction leader Thomas Aeschi makes his prediction about SRF as follows: “The consequence of these elections will be a stricter immigration and asylum policy.”
However, it will not be so easy for the election winner to achieve her goals. Despite an increase of nine seats in the National Council, together with the FDP, she did not win an absolute majority in the National Council as in 2015. And she is also not sure of the votes of the FDP, which has recently moved closer to the SVP regarding its requirements in the asylum system. In the past, some SVP initiatives went too far for the FDP – for example when the relationship with the EU was at stake due to the end of the free movement of people.
The center will therefore once again decide in which direction Switzerland will move with regard to its migration policy. Only with their votes can both left-wing and right-wing initiatives pass through the National Council.
During the election campaign, the parties wanted to present concrete solutions to the health insurance premiums that have been rising for years with initiatives and proposals. The SP launched the premium waiver initiative, the FDP launched the “budget” health insurer, the center launched the cost brake initiative, the GLP launched the “intelligent hospital planning” initiative and the Greens launched a proposal for a health insurance premium that depends on income.
Now the party that has not yet presented a detailed solution for rising healthcare costs has made gains in the National Council: the SVP. In her current party manifesto, she advocates ‘more competition’ in healthcare and ‘less government intervention’.
However, for future Swiss health policy, this does not mean that the current course in the National Council will change significantly. Even in its current configuration, progress on all sides struggled. In the healthcare sector, parties can almost never agree on a proposal. Even the SP and the Greens voted differently in the National Council in the past. Just as the FDP and the SVP hardly found a common line.
The question is whether this will change significantly with the new compilation. But perhaps the middle will also be decisive in this area.
The question remains whether private initiatives, such as the cost brake initiative, also have a greater chance of being adopted. The center has been criticized for being partly responsible for rising health insurance premiums, as the current and largely re-elected National Council members have a particularly large number of paid lobbying mandates from the healthcare sector.
source: watson
I’m Maxine Reitz, a journalist and news writer at 24 Instant News. I specialize in health-related topics and have written hundreds of articles on the subject. My work has been featured in leading publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and Healthline. As an experienced professional in the industry, I have consistently demonstrated an ability to develop compelling stories that engage readers.
