Swiss reject biodiversity and pension reform proposals

Campaigners argued that biodiversity is in a disastrous situation in Switzerland and requires more resources. Keystone / Peter Schneider

Voters on Sunday clearly rejected an initiative to better protect biodiversity in Switzerland. A complex proposal to reform the country’s occupational pension scheme has also been turned down.

Switzerland does not need to do more to protect biodiversity and nature. This is the main conclusion of a nationwide ballot on Sunday, which saw some 63% of voters rejecting a biodiversity initiative launched by nature and environmental protection groups.

Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) acknowledges that biodiversity protection in the country is insufficient, with half of all natural environments and a third of natural spaces threatened.

Read more: Biodiversity loss in Switzerland in six graphs

But the biodiversity initiative was opposed by a broad alliance – the main right-wing and centre-right parties, as well as farming and business groups – which considered it “too extreme and ineffective”. They argued that current legislation is sufficient to promote biodiversity.

The initiative campaigners were up against more powerful opponents, Swiss public television, SRF, wrote in an analysis of the vote on Sunday. Farmers warned that the initiative would endanger food security and officials from the energy industry argued that the proposal would threaten the expansion of renewable energy in Switzerland. Over the course of the campaign, supporters of the initiative were simply unable to dispel these fears, SRF noted.

The vote campaign and results highlighted a gulf between people in rural and urban areas. The text was rejected by a majority of cantons, with high “no” proportions in rural regions such as Valais (73.9%), Appenzell Inner-Rhodes (74.6%), Nidwalden (75.8%) and Schwyz (76.6%). Voters in cantons Geneva (51.2%) and Basel City (57.7%) and several cities, including Lausanne (60%) and Lucerne (53%), said “yes”.

Farmers are very interested in preserving nature and its resources, declared Katja Riem, a farmer who is also a parliamentarian from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party. “But a yes to biodiversity does not mean rigid guidelines. A balance must be struck between protection and benefit,” she told SRF.

Green Party parliamentarian Aline Trede meanwhile told SRF that biodiversity protection efforts would continue in Switzerland. And in a swipe at the “no” campaign led by farming organisations, she said that discussions had to be based on scientific facts, rather than the “false facts” which she claimed scared many people into voting “no”. 

‘Slap in the face’

On Sunday 67.1% of voters roundly also rejected a government-backed reform of Switzerland’s occupational pension scheme, the so-called second pillar of the national pension system.

The plan to revise the occupational pension system was adopted in 2023 by parliament after long debates. Left-wing parties and trade unions then brought a referendum against it.

Lukas Golder from the gfs.bern research institute said the extent of Sunday’s “no” result was a clear “slap in the face” for authorities. Golder explained the rejection by the complexity of the proposal, as well as recent revelations that authorities had miscalculated forecasts about the health of the first pillar of the pension system.

The government had argued that the pension reform was essential to guarantee the sustainable funding of the second pillar, which is under pressure due to an ageing population and low interest rates affecting the investments of pension funds.

One of the main changes would have been a reduction in the pension conversion rate – a fixed percentage used to calculate the level of annual pension payments based on the amount of retirement assets saved – from 6.8% to 6%.

While this would have resulted in a smaller annuity, it would have been possible to draw a pension for longer, proponents said. For a transitional period of 15 years, the reduction was meanwhile to be compensated based on age and the amount of retirement capital saved. The reform had also aimed to provide better protection for part-time employees and people on lower wages, especially women.

‘Consolidate rather than dismantle’

But opponents, led by unions and left-wing parties, had argued that people working part time and women would again be penalised. The majority of the population would have ended up facing pension cuts – and this after having to contribute more during their working lives.

Social Democrat politician Jessica Jacoud told Swiss public radio, RTS, that the vote was another example – after a vote to boost pension payments earlier this year – of the population’s wish to “strengthen” the pension system rather than “dismantle” it. At a time of worries about purchasing power, the opponents’ main slogan of “pay more to get less pension” was decisive, she said.

The result was also another victory for the Swiss Trade Union Federation and its president Pierre-Yves Maillard.

“People can’t take pension cuts anymore,” Maillard told RTS. “The only way to improve the pensions of low-paid workers and people with short careers, especially women, is to introduce a dose of solidarity into the system.”

Second pillar ‘must be modernised’

Reacting to Sunday’s result, Radical-Liberal parliamentarian Regina Suter described the result as a “lost opportunity” to boost the pension situation of low-earners and part-time workers in the country. She said left-wing opponents of the reform had used partly “fact-free” arguments to drum up fear about the consequences.

In an editorial, the French Le Temps newspaper said the extent of the result was “surprising”. The initial reform proposal was “a minor miracle” that had brought social partners and the government together in a solid compromise backed by parliament. But when the politicians then got involved in the campaign, they “lost the unions and some of the employers along the way”, the paper wrote.

However, Sunday’s defeat should not prevent the parties from getting back to work. The second pension pillar “absolutely must be modernised”, said Le Temps. “Nobody in Switzerland has an interest in the status quo: a law designed for a world of work that no longer exists.”

Turnout for Sunday’s two votes was 45%.

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