Swiss business and farming groups are stepping up calls for a rollback of red tape, warning that an expanding regulatory burden is stifling productivity just as labour shortages intensify. They are urging the Federal Council and parliament to act before the end of the current legislative term.
At a press conference in Bern, economiesuisse, the Swiss Employers’ Association, the SME federation and the farmers’ union argued that administrative costs have become a serious brake on growth. A new study by BSS Volkswirtschaftliche Beratung and Germany’s ifo institute estimates that more than CHF 30bn a year could be saved if administrative processes were modernised and further digitised.
Countries such as Sweden and Denmark, the authors note, already operate with far leaner regulatory standards.
The stock of rules continues to grow. During the previous parliamentary term, lawmakers amended or created 203 laws and ordinances. Halfway through the current term, the trajectory remains firmly upward. The study suggests that if Switzerland had trimmed bureaucracy at the same pace as comparable economies, GDP per capita would now be about 5% higher.
Business groups estimate that excessive regulation absorbs the equivalent of over 55,000 full-time jobs, tied up in non-productive administrative work rather than value-creating activity.
The government has begun to respond. In August it instructed several departments to propose regulatory simplifications and reassess pending projects. But industry leaders say analysis must now give way to action. Christoph Mäder, president of economiesuisse, calls for the full digitisation of interactions between firms and the state, a halt to new sustainability rules, and a review of selected environmental and energy regulations.
Whether Switzerland’s fondness for meticulous rule-making can be reconciled with its productivity ambitions remains an open question.
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