Compass Initiative: a new party if the double majority is dropped

If Parliament decides not to submit the package of agreements with the European Union to the double majority of the people and the cantons, the campaigners behind the Compass Initiative may found a new party. Philip Erzinger, the movement's managing director, confirmed this to Keystone-ATS. He himself belongs to the free-market liberal camp.

The idea is not new. Erzinger had already set it out in recent months to the Tages-Anzeiger and other media. The new political force would gather dissatisfied members of the FDP and the Centre, the two parties in which the European question has opened the most visible divisions.

According to Erzinger, the turning point was the decision by FDP delegates to approve the package of agreements with Brussels and to reject the call for a double majority. "That was what triggered numerous telephone calls from dissatisfied FDP members," he said.

The decision rests with the Council of States

For now the project remains in a drawer. The campaigners are still hoping for a favourable decision from the cantonal chamber and have therefore suspended their preparations.

The National Council's Political Institutions Committee has come out in favour of a constitutional basis for the package of agreements. If that approach prevails, the text would be subject to a mandatory referendum. It would then need a majority of voters and a majority of cantons, not only a majority of ballots.

The difference is not merely formal. Under the double majority the weight of the small and outlying cantons rises appreciably, and the room for manoeuvre of those backing the package narrows. That is why the procedural question has in practice become the first battleground over the substance of the agreements.

Members of the Council of States are expected to take a position during the autumn session. Only after that vote will the Compass Initiative campaigners decide whether to pursue the party project.

It remains an open question how much room the Swiss system really leaves for a formation born of a single issue. A new party would take votes above all from the two centrist forces that occupy that space today, and it is not clear what its programme would be on matters other than European policy.