The Federal Council called on to support key companies for the Swiss economy, including Vetropack – rts.ch

From the Greens to the UDC, 18 parliamentarians co-signed this motion filed by ecologist Sophie Michaud-Gigon. The text highlights the importance of glassware in the local economy, as well as its recycling activity. “We are not in a strategic element like the energy transition or solar energy,” says the national advisor in La Matinale de la RTS. “Despite everything, it is the last Swiss production factory. It is necessarily linked to a local economy, since the winegrowers and brewers also obtain their supplies there.”

>> Reread: Vetropack could close its St-Prex factory this year, 180 jobs at risk

International competition

The motion therefore affirms that an industrial strategy is necessary by calling on the Federal Council to develop incentives and framework conditions to maintain strategic industrial sectors. While the United States and the European Union are developing significant investments and support to accelerate their energy and industrial transitions, Switzerland runs, according to this text, a significant risk of relocation.

“We will not be able to align ourselves with the level of these great powers in terms of what they invest. But at the same time, we also have objectives and we have an economic fabric which is important and which we want to keep” , indicates Sophie Michaud-Gigon. “So we are really now put under pressure by this distortion of competition which is very significant,” continues the secretary general of the Fédération romande des consommateurs (FRC).

The Unia union, which is currently negotiating with the management of the Vaud site, welcomes the proposal, which would make it possible to maintain the recycling sector on Swiss soil. “The Swiss recycle around 300,000 tonnes of glass per year and the Saint-Prex glassworks are central to this recycling,” explains Noé Pelet, union secretary of Unia Vaud.

“What are we going to do with these 300,000 tonnes?” continues the trade unionist, who fears that they will be “sent to glassworks elsewhere in Europe, within other groups and this by truck”. “We find that it is entirely relevant and useful for the Swiss population to have the 100% glass recycling sector on its soil,” he concludes.

Role of the State?

The Swiss authorities, as well as the major economic umbrella organizations, are traditionally reluctant to such programs, considered contrary to the liberal spirit of the Swiss industrial fabric. For Sophie Michaud-Gigon, on the other hand, it is high time that Switzerland opened up to this idea. “In the United States, they develop the economy with state support,” she says. “So we are a bit in this situation. Switzerland has never wanted to talk about industrial policy, but we must now also debate that.”

A decision has not yet been taken by the Federal Council, but Economy Minister Guy Parmelin recalls that in a similar situation, the government refused to provide support to the Stahl Gerlafingen steel factories.

“The Federal Council responded in the negative, confirming that it did not wish to establish an industrial policy, because the risks are that we will maintain industries which are no longer viable in Switzerland,” he explains. “On the other hand, there are, through different laws adopted by Parliament, different means available to companies that wish to invest in the future, for example in decarbonization.”

Sophie Michaud-Gigon, however, remains confident and believes that there is awareness of the “risk of security of supply, in relation to the energy transition”. “So I am confident that we will really discuss this subject soon, because it is a subject which is very important for the Swiss economy,” she assures.

Radio subject and comments collected: Julien Bangerter and Valérie Hauert

Web adaptation: Emilie Délétroz