27 September - Neutrality and food security up for public vote

On 27 September, Swiss voters will go to the polls to vote on two initiatives. The first, around Swiss Neutrality, was launched by the Pro Suisse association. It calls for a stricter definition of neutrality to be written into the Swiss Constitution.

In brief, the request is to have permanent and armed neutrality written into the Constitution. The main ideas behind this vote:

• Switzerland would remain an armed Country, but we would not form military alliances with Countries or organisations such as NATO unless there was a direct threat to Switzerland.

• Switzerland would no longer be able to impose sanctions independently against states at war; the only exception to this would be sanctions decided by the UN Security Council.

For more information, watch of this short reel from swissinfo.ch available on YouTube.

The second initiative up for vote is the food security initiative, which does not have the backing of any major political party but is being led by environmental campaigner Franziska Herren. The main idea of this initiative is to get the government to support and encourage the production of plant-based foods.

The aim of this initiative is to increase Switzerland’s food self-sufficiency from 46% to at least 70%. The main ideas behind the vote are:

• Increase the production and consumption of plant-based rather than animal products within Switzerland.

• Preservation of groundwater resources through the introduction of measures to preserve biodiversity and soil fertility.

For more information, watch of this short reel from swissinfo.ch available on YouTube.