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|
Federal Assembly | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | |
| Type | |
| Houses | Council of States National Council |
| Leadership | |
President of the National Council | |
President of the Council of States | |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 246 46Council of States 200National Council |
 | |
National Council political groups | |
 | |
Council of States political groups | |
| Elections | |
LastNational Council election | 22 October 2023 |
LastCouncil of States election | October–November 2023 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| Federal Palace of Switzerland,Bern | |
| Website | |
| www | |
TheFederal Assembly,[1] also known as theSwiss Parliament, is the federalbicameral parliament[2] ofSwitzerland. It comprises the 200-seatNational Council and the 46-seatCouncil of States. It meets inBern in theFederal Palace.
Thehouses have identical powers. Members of both houses represent thecantons, but, whereas seats in the National Council are distributed in proportion to population, each canton has two seats in the Council of States, except the six 'half-cantons', which have one seat each. Both are elected in full once every four years, with thelast election being held in 2023.
The Federal Assembly possesses the federal government'slegislative power, along with the separate constitutional right ofcitizen's initiative. For a law to pass, it must be passed by both houses. The two houses may come together as aUnited Federal Assembly in certain circumstances, such as to elect theFederal Council (thehead of government andstate), theFederal Chancellor, thefederal judges or (only in times of great national danger) ageneral.
Prior to the establishment of thefederal state in 1848, the only central organ ofSwitzerland was the Federal Diet (Tagsatzung). Following theSonderbund War in 1847, theTagsatzung became responsible for drawing up theSwiss Federal Constitution.[3]
The process of formulatinglegislative power resulted in clashing opinions, in particular in relation to the representation of the various cantons: theradicals, in the majority in the largestcantons, pushed for a system where representation was purely proportional to the population of each township; the small cantons, for their part, feared being marginalized. After long debates, a compromise was found by adopting the American model ofbicameralism; the parliament will be composed of two chambers with equal power, and the agreement of both will be required to take a decision. TheNational Council, which represents the people, will comprise representatives from each canton with their distribution being proportional to the population of the cantons, while theCouncil of States, which represents the cantons, will be composed of the same number of representatives from each canton. According to theConstitution of 1848, the Federal Assembly is "the supreme authority of the Confederation".[3]
TheTagsatzung accepted the draft constitution in June 1848. On September 12, following the vote of the various cantons, it noted that the Constitution had been approved and dissolved itself on September 22, as required by the transitional provisions of the approved text. During the month of October 1848, elections were organized in the cantons in order to elect the deputies. After a few skirmishes, particularly in the canton of Fribourg, the results were announced which confirmed the victory of the radicals, who won more than three-quarters of the seats in the National Council and 30 of the 44 seats in the Council of States. On, November 16, 1848, Parliament elected the first Federal Council.[3] In 1874, following the revision of the Constitution and the introduction of extended popular rights, the Federal Assembly became "the supreme authority of the Confederation subject to the rights of the people and the cantons".[3]
The organization of the two councils has changed little over time. When the National Council was created, the total number of seats was 111.[3] This number was not fixed and evolved in proportion to the growth of the Swiss population until 1962 when the definitive number of seats was established at 200; the term of office, meanwhile, was increased from the original three years to four years in 1931. The mode of election, originally according to the majority system, transitioned toproportional representation in 1918.[4] The Council of States, meanwhile, was not modified until 1979, by adding two new seats for theCanton of Jura which had just been created.[3]
The Federal Assembly is made up of two chambers:
Seats in theNational Council are allocated to thecantons proportionally, based onpopulation. In theCouncil of States, everycanton has two seats (except for the former "half-cantons", which have one seat each).
On occasions the two houses sit jointly as the "United Federal Assembly" (German:Vereinigte Bundesversammlung;French:Assemblée fédérale, Chambres réunies;Italian:Assemblea federale plenaria;Romansh:Assamblea federala plenara). This is done to:
The United Federal Assembly is presided by theNational Council's presidency.
The Federal Assembly also confirms the appointment of theFederal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (appointed by theFederal Council).[5]
Parties can cooperate inparliamentary groups, also calledpolitical groups, allowing smaller parties access to rights as part of acaucus. At least five members from the same Council are needed to form a group. Only informal groups exist in theCouncil of States. Members of theNational Council are required to be in a formal group in order to be able to sit on a committee.[6]
Since March 2009, there have been six groups in the Federal Assembly.The latest group to form was theConservative Democratic Party which split off the Swiss People's Party in 2008.TheChristian Democrats/EPP/glp Group (CEg) was formed after the 2007 elections, out of the former Christian Democratic (C) and EPP (E) groups.The current FTP/Liberal group (RL) was formed in 2003 out of the former FDP (R) and Liberal (L) groups; since the 2009 fusion of theFree Democratic andLiberal Parties, RL is once again a single-party group. In 2011, the CEg was disbanded, the Green Liberals formed their own parliamentary group (GL) and the three Christian parties formed the Christian-Evangelical Group (CE).
Currently (for the legislative period of 2019–2023), the six parliamentary groups are composed as follows:
| Group | Parties | NC | CS | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People's parliamentary group (V) | Swiss People's Party | 53 | 6 | 62 | |
| Ticino League | 1 | 0 | |||
| Federal Democratic Union | 1 | 0 | |||
| Independent | 0 | 1 | |||
| Social Democrats parliamentary group (S) | Social Democratic Party | 39 | 8 | 47 | |
| Centre parliamentary group CVP-EVP-BDP (M-CEB) | Christian Democratic People's Party | 25 | 14 | 45 | |
| Conservative Democratic Party | 3 | 0 | |||
| Evangelical People's Party | 3 | 0 | |||
| FDP.The Liberals parliamentary group (RL) | FDP.The Liberals | 29 | 12 | 41 | |
| Green parliamentary group (G) | Green Party | 28 | 5 | 35 | |
| Swiss Party of Labour | 1 | 0 | |||
| Solidarity | 1 | 0 | |||
| Green Liberal parliamentary group (GL) | Green Liberal Party | 16 | 0 | 16 | |
After the2015 federal election, the Federal Assembly was composed of 7 groups:[7]
| Group | Parties | NC | CS | Total | President | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V | Swiss People's Party group Fraktion der Schweizerischen Volkspartei Groupe de l'Union Démocratique du Centre | SVP/UDC (69),Lega (2),MCR (1),Ind. (2) | 68 | 6 | 74 | Thomas Aeschi | |
| S | Social Democratic group Sozialdemokratische fraction Groupe socialiste | SP/PS | 42 | 12 | 54 | Roger Nordmann | |
| RL | FDP-Liberal-Radical group FDP-Liberale fraktion Groupe Libéral-Radical | FDP/PLR | 33 | 12 | 45 | Beat Walti | |
| C | CVP group CVP-fraktion Groupe PDC | CVP/PDC (40),EVP/PEV (2),CSP OW (1) | 29 | 14 | 43 | Filippo Lombardi | |
| G | Greens group Grüne fraktion Groupe des Verts | Greens (12),PdA/PST (1) | 12 | 1 | 13 | Balthasar Glättli | |
| BD | BDP group BDP fraktion Groupe PBD | BDP/PBD | 7 | 1 | 8 | Rosmarie Quadranti | |
| GL | Green-liberal group Grünliberale fraktion Groupe Vert'Libéral | GLP/PVL | 8 | 0 | 8 | Tiana Angelina Moser | |
| Groups | Vacant | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V | S | RL | C | G | BD | GL | ||
| Opening | 74 | 55 | 45 | 43 | 13 | 8 | 7 | 0 |
| 2019-05-29[a] | 54 | 8 | ||||||
| 2019-06-03[b] | 42 | 1 | ||||||
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
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