The Swiss government has rejected the so-called “Compass” Initiative, which seeks to subject the planned package of agreements with the European Union to a mandatory vote of both the people and the cantons. The Federal Council ruled out the proposal this week and declined to offer a counter-project.
Formally titled: For direct democracy and the competitiveness of our country—against Switzerland as a passive EU member, the initiative would enshrine in the constitution the principle that Switzerland may not hand over its jurisprudence to foreign authorities. Its backers—drawn largely from German-speaking business circles and from the PLR/FDP and the UDC/SVP—say this would safeguard direct democracy and prevent a drift towards passive EU membership.
In practice, the initiative would require all treaties involving the dynamic adoption of foreign law to be subject to a mandatory referendum. The current EU treaty package would thus need approval not only from voters nationwide but also from a majority of cantons.
The Federal Council argues that the initiative has little chance of securing majority support. Similar attempts to extend the mandatory referendum to international treaties, it notes, have repeatedly failed both in parliament and at the ballot box.
The government favours a facultative referendum for the EU package instead. A mandatory referendum, it says, should be reserved for exceptional cases—when an agreement fundamentally reshapes Swiss institutions or foreign policy. In its view, the EU package does neither. It also rejects tailoring referendum rules to a single set of treaties.
Extending the mandatory referendum to international agreements would have sweeping consequences that go well beyond relations with Brussels, the government warns. The final say on how the EU accords will be put to a vote now rests with parliament.
Note: a facultative referendum is an optional vote that allows voters to challenge a law or decision passed by parliament by forcing a nationwide vote—but only after collecting 50,000 valid signatures within 100 days. A mandatory referendum requires no signatures. Another key difference is that a facultative referendum requires only a nationwide majority to pass. A mandatory referendum requires this and majorities in a majority of the cantons.
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