The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) on Tuesday launched a new popular initiative aiming to end Switzerland’s free movement agreement with the EU and give Switzerland full control over immigration. The initiative ‘For limited immigration’ has been deemed admissible by the Federal Chancellery, reported the Swiss press, allowing campaigners to start gathering signatures in favour of the proposal. They have …

Catalonia’s deposed leader said on Wednesday that a majority of Catalans might accept being part of a Swiss-style federal system in Spain, an apparent departure from the separatist bid for full independence. “If Spain proposes a model like the one in Switzerland, I think that would be an idea we could work with and perhaps an idea that could convince …

The controversial former head of Switzerland’s right-wing Swiss People’s Party, Christoph Blocher is to step down from his role in the party leadership committee, the party announced on Monday. The one-time business magnate will also give up his role as chief strategist for the SVP, a position that will not be replaced. But a party spokesperson for the SVP said …

Switzerland’s reputation as international hub for espionage has been bolstered in recent years with foreign intelligence services using locations around the country to exchange sensitive political, economic and military information. “The Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) is aware that Switzerland is also a venue for third-country meetings,” agency spokesperson Isabelle Graber told national daily NZZ recently, referring to encounters between agent …

Tensions between Switzerland and the European Union over a planned institutional framework accord continued to simmer on Wednesday with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker saying the Swiss government was responsible for the current stalemate in the negotiations. “I have met with the [former] Swiss president [Doris Leuthard] eight times since coming to office and have always indicated that an institutional …

Swiss voters look set to reject a motion to scrap the country’s compulsory radio and television licence fee in the upcoming March 4th referendum, poll results show. Almost two out of three voters (65 percent) say they will vote against a proposal to do away with the fee, according to the survey commissioned by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) – …

A key meeting venue in the Swiss Federal Palace in Bern was on Monday renamed the ‘Carl Lutz room’ in honour of the diplomat who – together with his colleagues in Budapest – saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary from the Nazis in the Second World War. The room in the West Wing of the building is where …

Switzerland has been taken to task by the human rights group Amnesty International for its tough treatment of asylum seekers and migrants. The country was violating international legal principles by returning migrants and asylum seekers with rejected asylum claims to countries where they are in danger of persecution, Amnesty said in its annual report published on Thursday. The human rights …

Swiss voters once again participated in the country’s unique system of direct democracy on Sunday, casting their ballots on matters of national, regional and local import. Here are the key results. 1) A clear vote against the No Billag initiative Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelming rejected an initiative backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) which would have seen …

Swiss President Doris Leuthard on Thursday slammed the EU’s decision to limit Swiss financial access to its markets as “discriminatory”. Leuthard was reacting to the news that the EU intends to place a one-year limit on Swiss stock exchange equivalency to EU markets because the two parties haven’t yet made any significant progress on an institutional framework agreement. Legal and …