This Sunday, Swiss voters significantly rejected two initiatives submitted to a referendum: one that proposed a 50% inheritance tax on the super-rich and another that aimed to extend mandatory civic or military service to women.
According to projections released after the polls closed, around 84% of voters this Sunday rejected the proposal for extend National Service to womenand 79% voted against the initiative that proposed a new estate tax.
The tax measure proposed the application of a tax rate 50% on inheritances higher than the exempt value of 50 million Swiss francs (around 53.6 million euros), allocating the proceeds to initiatives to combat climate change. The proposal had been presented by the youth wing of the Socialist Party.
The initiative “For a committed Switzerland”, in turn, proposed that the current mandatory military or civil service for men was extended to women, also covering new forms of social service, such as environmental protection, support for vulnerable people and assistance in preventing disasters.
Neither initiative managed to gain support broader policy by the Swiss government or other parties, and a survey carried out ten days before the referendum I already anticipated the defeat of both at the polls, note the .
Proponents of the so-called “civic service initiative” argued that this would reinforce social cohesion, creating jobs in areas such as environmental prevention, food security and support for the elderly population.
“Clouds are gathering in the sky of a Switzerland increasingly fragmented. On the one hand, there are landslides in the mountains, floods in the plains, cyber attacks, risks of energy shortages or war in Europe. On the other hand, individualism, loneliness and tensions are growing”, argued the campaign promoters.
“With the proposal of a national service for all young people, the initiative responds precisely to what we need: everyone takes responsibility to work for a stronger Switzerland, capable of facing crises”, they added.
The Swiss Parliament showed itself mostly against the proposal, claiming that it could have significant costs and fearing that the measure could harm the economyby removing tens of thousands of young people from the job market, says .
The government, in turn, countered thatand the army and civil protection already have of the number of staff required and that no more people should be recruited than those strictly necessary.
Although the mandatory military service for women can be seen as “a step towards gender equality”, the executive stressed that such a measure “would represent a additional weight for many womenwho already support a large part of the unpaid work related to the education and care of children and family members, as well as domestic tasks”.
“Given that equality in the job market and in society is not yet a reality, forcing women to provide civic service would not constitute an advance in terms of equality”, added the government.
Os young Swiss men are required to carry out military service or be part of civil protection teams. Conscientious objectors may opt for other forms of service, and whoever completely refuses has to pay a fee exemption.
The initiative would oblige all Swiss citizens to perform national servicewhereas, at the moment, women only do so voluntarily, and would extend the concept of national security to areas beyond military service and civil protection.
