BERN. Switzerland will vote on five federal proposals on 28 February 2027, the Federal Council decided on Wednesday. The list runs from citizenship and nuclear power to foie gras, palm oil and the minimum wage. It is the first of only two nationwide voting Sundays in an election year, and it is already fuller than a typical ballot.
Five items on one day is above the recent average. It is not a record. On 18 May 2003 voters faced nine national proposals. Across this century the country has decided about eight or nine federal questions a year, which at four voting dates works out at two or three a Sunday. February is doing the work of two Sundays at once, because 2027 has only two dates before the federal elections in October. A further round is reserved for 6 June. Eight popular initiatives are still in parliament, signatures are being collected against the Mercosur trade deal, and it is not yet clear whether the EU treaty package will be ready for a vote by the summer.
Citizenship after five years
The Democracy Initiative, “For a modern citizenship law”, would let a foreign resident apply for naturalisation after five years of legal residence, whatever the permit, and would put the procedure in federal hands so the rules are the same in every canton. Today the law asks for ten years, including three of the five years before the application, and in practice a settlement permit. Cantons can, and do, add stricter tests of their own.
The committee, Action Quatre Quarts, is backed on the left. Parliament refused to support the text. The centre-right is campaigning against it. For EU and EFTA citizens, and for Americans and Canadians, five years on a B permit already leads to a C permit, and another five years of residence then leads to an application. For most other nationalities the wait for a C permit is ten years. The initiative would collapse that ladder. Voters decide whether the wait, and the cantonal patchwork, stay as they are.
Nuclear plants, ten years after the ban
The same Sunday asks voters to accept or reject a change to the Nuclear Energy Act that would lift the ban on building new nuclear plants. In 2017 the country voted to phase nuclear power out and to stop new construction. The Federal Council now wants that ban gone, as an indirect counter-proposal to the “Stop the Blackout” initiative. The initiative committee, drawn from the Swiss People’s Party, the Radical-Liberal Party and business, says it can live with the counter-proposal. The Greens, the Social Democrats, the Green Liberals and part of the Centre cannot.
The left and green coalition that forced the referendum has already handed in more than 131,800 signatures, well above the 50,000 required. A Yes to the act would reopen the door to new plants. A No would keep the 2017 ban. The campaign will be about winter electricity, cost, waste and dependence on imported fuel, and it will be fought in the same weeks as the citizenship row.
Foie gras, palm oil and the wage floor
The foie gras initiative would ban imports of force-fed liver, including parcels ordered by private households for their own use. Early readings of opinion put support highest in German-speaking Switzerland. It is the most cultural of the five questions, and the one least tangled in the election arithmetic.
The economic partnership between the EFTA states and Malaysia is the trade question. Parliament backs the agreement, which would cut duties on 12,500 tonnes of palm oil. A coalition of left parties and environmental groups has forced the referendum, citing tropical forests. The result will be read as a signal for the Mercosur deal, where a similar challenge is still collecting names.
The fifth item is the law that would let a generally binding collective agreement set a minimum wage below a cantonal minimum. Today an agreement can be extended across a sector only if it does not contradict cantonal law, so the cantonal floor wins. The Federal Council’s bill would reverse that. Unions and the left oppose it. The referendum campaign is already under way, and Zurich’s own minimum is due to rise to CHF 24.59 an hour in January, which will make the gap easier to explain on a leaflet.
Households still have a nearer Sunday. On 29 November the country votes on noisy fireworks, the War Materiel Act, extra financing for the AHV, and fairer federal tax for married couples. February is the next pile. Anyone who wants the arguments in one place before the papers arrive can follow each file here as the campaigns open. The ballot is set. The majorities are not.