BERN. The treaty package with Brussels has survived its first contact with the House of Representatives, and the verdict is warmer than the government dared to hope. In a press release on Wednesday, the chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee declared it absolutely essential for Switzerland to maintain good relations with the European Union, welcomed a negotiation outcome that meets, or even exceeds, all the objectives set, and gave its opinion on a first set of points in the bundle of agreements.
The committee’s backing largely tracks the position the Senate adopted in September after three days and 22 hours of debate. Two elements stand out. The committee expressly approves the wage protection measures, the part of the package designed to shield Swiss salaries from posted-worker undercutting, and it welcomes the compromise the trade unions negotiated, a signal that the labour wing of the yes camp is holding. What the committee has not yet decided is the referendum question: which form of public vote, if any, the package should face. That choice, more than any other, will shape the campaign of 2027.
December in the chamber
The package now travels through the House’s committee machinery before the full chamber debates it, with those debates expected to begin in December. The arithmetic differs sharply from the Senate’s. The SVP, the largest group in the House, rejects the treaties outright and has spent the autumn accusing the parliamentary services of censoring one of its speeches; the centre parties hold the balance and, on Wednesday’s evidence, lean towards yes with conditions.
The cantons and the people wait
The Senate’s marathon ended with a promise that the cantons would get their say, and the government has tied its own hands on the vote: the package is built so that the people, one way or another, will have the last word. The question occupying the committees is procedural only in name. A mandatory referendum with a cantonal majority requirement is a different mountain from an optional one, and both camps know the polls: support for the deal is broad but soft, and turnout will decide it.
For Brussels, Wednesday’s signal matters beyond Bern. The EU has waited a decade for Switzerland to settle its institutional relationship with the single market, and it is watching the House for exactly what the committee provided: proof that the Senate’s yes was not a one-off mood. The next test comes in December, under the chandeliers of the National Council chamber, where the package faces its hardest audience.