Offices in the Council of States are only available without further requirements: the Greens need a lot of goodwill now

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The Greens must be patient for their first presidency of the Council of States. Actually, Geneva State Councilor Lisa Mazzone (35) should have been the first Green Party ever to take office in 2025, and she should have been elected first vice president in the winter session. But now that she has been voted out, that position is gone and the green premiere has faded into the distance.

And because in the new legislature there are only three Greens left in Stöckli, Céline Vara (39, NE), Maya Graf (61, BL) and Mathias Zopfi (39, GL), their seat in the office of the Council of States – management, so to speak – is also available Debate. According to current regulations, to have a permanent right to an office location you need five mandates.

The Greens want to stay in office

One thing is clear: the Greens want to stay in office. “We are a state-supporting party with 10 percent of the votes and should therefore be represented in the offices of both councils,” faction leader Aline Trede (40) told Blick.

She therefore hopes that the other factions will take a more active stance and therefore makes compromises. “We are aware that things will not go well for the vice presidency right away,” she said. “We would like to appoint an additional office member, and the goal of course remains a presidency in the Council of States.”

Goodwill to the Greens

Whether this happens depends on the goodwill of the other members of the Council of States. And this certainly seems to exist. “We will not prevent the Greens from having a seat in the office,” says SVP faction leader and state councilor Hannes Germann (67, SH).

The Greens must be involved in this so that they too receive important information. But without getting on the ‘treadmill’ for a future presidency of the Council of States, as Germann emphasizes. “The Greens must first make gains again in the elections.”

Adjust regulations

We also hear from other parties that they are certainly prepared to grant the Greens an office location – but only as an additional member without further claims.

To achieve this, the Council of States’ business regulations would have to be amended and the five-person limit removed. It is conceivable, for example, an additional provision that the Council of States can voluntarily allocate office space to smaller groups. For this, Vara or Zopfi would be in the foreground.

The group leaders will meet on Wednesday to discuss how to proceed. The agency should receive the nominations next Monday. Ultimately, the entire Council of States must decide.

FDP-Caroni becomes first vice president

In any case, the presidential hierarchy will change if the Greens renounce vice: Eva Herzog (61, BS) will be elected president of the Council of States during the winter session as planned.

Andrea Caroni (43, AR), on the other hand, rose to first vice president a year earlier, as did Stefan Engler (63, center) to second vice president. And vote counter Werner Salzmann (61, SVP) would become president in 2027 – which would mean that he could decide without pressure whether to run for national elections again or not.

Source:Blick