On November 30. the Swiss will be called to the urns again, this time to vote on three local referendums and 3 national ones, here we take a look at what they are.
Die Bilder gehören auf die Kapellbrücke (the pictures belong on the Chapel Bridge)
The first local one concerns the pictures on the Chapel Bridge, as you probably know many of them were lost in the fire that burned parts of the bridge over 20 years ago. Since then the municipal council has been refusing to have any copies of the pictures put in their place arguing that they want to keep the bridge looking authentic. A private person, Jost Schumacher, paid for copies of the original paintings which are now missing and he would like to see them hanging on the bridge. This initiative is his latest attempt at achieving this. It calls for the decision of what should hang up to be taken out of the hands of the municipal council and handed over to the overseeing council, where one presumes he must have more clout. The town and municipal council are calling for people to vote no to his initiative.
Verkauf Grundstück Mattenhof (Sale of the plot of land Mattenhof)
Both councils are pushing for this strategic plot of land consisting of 5 individual plots to be sold to Mobimo AG for over 3 million francs, arguing that the area should become a strategic part of the urban Luzern. The Green Party and the Young Green Party are against this.
Gütschbahn
The Gütsch Hotel is a part of the Luzern scenery and the little train that linked it to the town an essential and quaint part of its charm. The Gütsch has had a new owner since 2008 and one of the first thing they did was tear the train station and tracks down. The town has demanded that they rebuild the train and agreed to share some of the 3.1 million francs that this will cost. This referendum is asking that the locals agree to 1.73 million francs to be allocated to this.
On a national level these are the referendums:
Schluss mit den Steuerprivilegien für Millionäre – Putting an end to the tax privilege for millionaires.
Everyone who lives in Switzerland has to pay taxes, foreign millionaires who want to move here have the possibility, in certain cantons, to pay a flat rate tax instead of being taxed on the income and personal worth. This initiative wants to forbid any canton from offering this possibility. Both the parliament and government are calling for this initiative to be rejected, arguing that this source of income is very important for certain cantons and, of course, fearing that this would put millionaires off from chosing Switzerland as their main residence.
Rettet unser Schweizer Gold – The Gold Initiative
Gold played an important role in the international financial markets for many many years but now it is of lesser importance. Nowadays the Swiss National Bank is deciding on strategies to keep the Swiss Franc strong. A part of their portfolio consists of gold but this initiative calls for at least 20% of the SNB capital to be gold. The gold should also not be made available to sell and be kept in Switzerland.
Both the government and parliament feels that this will be causing more problems than creating solutions because it would limit the SNB in its flexibility and making this gold unavailable for trading would increase the problem and are calling for the referendum to be refused.
Stopp der Überbevölkerung – Stop the overcrowding or the Ecopop initiative
Hot on the heels of the February 9. initiative to restrict members of the EU/UFTA states from moving here through the implementing of contingents, this new initiative is asking for even more changes to the system. They are calling for the number of immigrants to be limited to 0,2% of the population; this represents roughly 17 000 people a year. It also demands the government invest 150 million francs in family planning programmes in developing countries.
Both the government and parliament are calling for this initiative to be rejected, arguing that this limitation would have a direct impact on the development of the Swiss economy and that the reason for developing countries having an overpopulation problem has more to do with poverty than family planning issues.
There are serious concerns that this initiative may be passed after analysts have compared the polling trends from the February 9th initiative and this one and find that the trends are similar and the difference between the yes and no is shrinking. We will update you on the results on November 30th.
