“The Federal Council wants to make the information day compulsory for Swiss women. During this day, which is already imposed on young men, young women will have an overview of the possibilities and chances offered to them by the army and civil protection.
In its first meeting of 2025, the Federal Council gave the green light to a project emanating from the Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sports (DDPS), headed by Viola Amherd, which aims to oblige every Swiss woman to participate in an information day. Parliament had already accepted the idea in 2022 in a postulate.
“This approach will advance equal opportunities,” the Federal Council wrote today, “confident that more women will decide to perform voluntary service by receiving all the necessary information.” But this can only be done by modifying the Constitution, therefore necessarily going through a popular vote.
In the general context of the army, the Federal Council argues that it is necessary to take measures to increase the numbers of the army and civil protection. At this point, two long-term development options are on the table: “secure obligation to serve and needs-based obligation to serve.”
The “obligation to serve in security” option would concern “male Swiss citizens, as is already the case today”. They would carry out their service in the army or disaster protection, a new organization which would result from “the merger of civil protection and civil service and placed under the jurisdiction of the cantons”.
In the “needs-based obligation to serve” option, the constraint would extend to Swiss women “to the extent that their participation would be necessary to supply the army or civil protection. Civil service would remain unchanged.
The two options, writes the Federal Council, “would be likely to resolve in the long term the staffing problems in the army and in civil protection.
According to the DDPS report, each of the two options would require an investment estimated at around 900 million francs for accommodation and training infrastructure. The annual costs for the Confederation and the cantons would also increase by around 900 million francs in both cases.
Remember that the obligation of a day of service for women was already defended by Guy Parmelin in 2017, when he was head of the DDPS. But his project did not come to fruition.
