A region called Jura which would include Neuchâtel and the Bernese Jura? Take Monthey out of Valais and return Chablais Valais to a new region called Léman which would go from Geneva to Friborg via Yverdon and Aigle? Put an end to the Valdo-Fribourg enclaves in Broye? In any case, this is the wish of Walter Knöpfel, 75-year-old retired financial director, author of a petition currently being processed by parliament. Rather than 26 cantons, he wants ten regions. The cantons of Solothurn and Aargau would be pulverized and distributed between the regions Mittelland (Bern), North-West (Basel), North (Zurich) and Central (Lucerne), for example.
How can we justify that Zurich, with 1.5 million people, and Appenzell Innerrhoden, with 16,000, have the same political structure, a government, a parliament, a police force, a justice system? “It’s ineffective,” according to him. He also denounces “the excessive weight of small cantons within the Federal Assembly”. In the Council of States, Jura, 74,540 inhabitants, has as much power as Geneva, which has seven times more inhabitants. We might as well eliminate this Chamber, according to Walter Knöpfel. A National Council of 120 members would be enough and the threshold of the “majority of the cantons” to be reached in the votes would be removed.
When a citizen files a petition, parliamentary committees must take it up and decide whether or not to propose changes to the law to follow it up. That of the National Council will do so in December. That of the Council of States has already taken up the matter and rejected it after a position taken by the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ). “A comprehensive territorial reform as well as an abolition of the Council of States would in principle be possible, provided that the constitutional changes are accepted by the people and the cantons. It is doubtful whether such a fundamental reform is likely to gain the necessary support,” the report reads. Walter Knöpfel knows he has no chance, but that doesn’t matter.
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