Swiss voters will decide on five federal proposals on February 28th 2027, including lifting the ban on building nuclear power plants and approving a free-trade agreement with Malaysia.
The Federal Council confirmed the list on Wednesday for the first of just two federal voting days scheduled for the election year. The other measures are the foie gras initiative, the democracy initiative and a proposal to allow wage floors below cantonal minimum wages to be made universally binding.
Further contentious measures could follow on June 6th. Eight popular initiatives are pending in parliament, and opponents of the free-trade agreement with Mercosur countries are collecting signatures to force a referendum. Whether the package of agreements with the European Union will be ready for a vote by the summer remains unclear.
A crowded ballot
Five proposals on a single Sunday is unusually many, but well short of a record. An analysis of federal voting days since 2000 shows that voters faced nine proposals on May 18th 2003. These included an army reform, a nuclear phase-out and initiatives on car-free Sundays and fair rents.
Since 2000 Swiss voters have decided on an average of eight to nine federal proposals a year. Spread across the usual four voting days, that amounts to two or three proposals at a time.
Next year’s federal elections leave room for only two referendum dates. The Federal Council traditionally schedules no referendums in the second half of an election year, keeping votes on policy separate from the campaign for the autumn elections.
That makes February’s ballot particularly crowded. In the six election years since 2000, voters have decided on an average of about four federal proposals over the whole year. The first ballot of 2027 alone will exceed that average.
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