Martin Maier, Consul General of Switzerland in Mumbai, speaks about India-Switzerland, a partnership for success
Martin Maier, Consul General of Switzerland in Mumbai, speaks about India-Switzerland, a partnership for success.
As the Dean of the Consular Corps in Mumbai, I have the honour to convey to you warmest greetings from the whole Consular community in Maharashtra. As diplomatic officers, we are here to assist our citizens and companies and to foster international cooperation in many fields. Please allow me to talk to you about two topics in relation to Switzerland: the political system and the excellent Indo-Swiss relations.
Federalism and direct democracy reflect the great importance that the Swiss political system places on the freedom of choice and self-determination. Over the centuries, a cluster of different alliances developed into a confederation of states that went on to become the federal state we know today. Switzerland’s national borders were fixed and internationally recognised in 1815.
For historical reasons, Switzerland is officially known as the Swiss Confederation. The name has its origins in the country’s founding myth which tells of the oath taken by its three founding Cantons in 1291 AD. Switzerland has, however, been a federal state only since 1848, with the federal city of Bern as its de facto capital. Because the Swiss could never agree on a capital, the Swiss constitution doesn’t name one, but our government is in Bern.
The Confederation shares power with the Cantons and the Communes. All three political levels have a legislating body and an executive. Only the Confederation and the Cantons have traditional powers. Switzerland’s political Political and legislative powers are distributed across these three levels in a way that grants each of them the greatest possible autonomy and brings a diverse range of political stakeholders together under one roof. Cantons act as constituent states and have their own constitutions, parliaments, governments, and courts.
Today’s political system of Switzerland is based on the Federal Constitution of 1841. Since then, the Confederation’s powers have grown, the rights of its citizens have expanded, and political diversity has increased. In a country with different religions and many linguistic groups, the federalism model makes it possible to accommodate both national unity and cultural diversity.
Together with direct democracy, federalism is one of the cornerstones of the Swiss political system. Federalism strives to integrate citizens into the political process as much as possible. Smaller communes are often run by locals in their free time. To ensure that the Cantons are equally represented at the federal level despite their differences in sizes, culture, and religion, each Political and legislative powers are distributed across these three levels in a way that grants each of them the greatest possible autonomy and brings a diverse range of political stakeholders together under one roof. Cantons act as constituent states and have their own constitutions, parliaments, governments, and courts.
Today’s political system of Switzerland is based on the Federal Constitution of 1841. Since then, the Confederation’s powers have grown, the rights of its citizens have expanded, and political diversity has increased. In a country with different religions and many linguistic groups, the federalism model makes it possible to accommodate both national unity and cultural diversity.
Together with direct democracy, federalism is one of the cornerstones of the Swiss political system. Federalism strives to integrate citizens into the political process as much as possible. Smaller communes are often run by locals in their free time. To ensure that the Cantons are equally represented at the federal level despite their differences in sizes, culture, and religion, each must be collected within 18 months. The authorities sometimes respond to an initiative with a direct counter proposal in the hope that the majority of the people and the Cantons support that instead.
Federal Acts and other enactments of the Federal Assembly are subject to optional referendums. These allow citizens to demand that approved bills are put to a nationwide vote. In order to bring about the national referendum, only 50,000 valid signatures must be collected within 100 days of publication of the new legislation.
Even most bi or multilateral treaties, for example a free trade agreement, are subjected to the optional referendum. All constitutional amendments approved by the Parliament are subject to a mandatory referendum. This means they must be put to a nationwide popular vote. The electorate are also required to approve Swiss membership of specific international organisations as, for example, the United Nations.
Our grown and balanced political system is in place to ensure that the will of the Swiss people is at all times respected. The political instruments of initiative and referendum ensure that the governments and legislators on all three levels always keep in mind that each single decision can be challenged by the sovereign, the people, and that therefore all acts have to be supported by a majority of voters.
While our direct democratic system guarantees that the will of the people is respected at all times, it doesn’t make politics easy, fast, or very straightforward, as you might imagine. Our system is consent based. This means that the political actors have to find solutions to which a majority of the political spectrum has to agree. This makes big visionary or fast decisions extremely difficult and often doesn’t bring the immediate solutions our country would need or lets us reach only the smallest common A further complication of our system is that subjects can be so complex or technical that many of our voters, and I clearly include myself in this, are sometimes overwhelmed and just not able to understand the consequences or the facets of the decision-making. But the experience shows that swarm intelligence produces, in most cases, the best possible solutions, even if sometimes unfortunate accidents happen in popular votes. As George Bernard Shaw well said, democracy is a process that guarantees that we are not governed better than we deserve.
However, and let me make this very clear, I do not think that we should put our direct democracy in chains and limit the power of the Swiss people. Together with the vast majority of my compatriots, I am proud of our political system and strongly believe that we have reached the ideal of democracy as close as possible with all its advantages and disadvantages, especially taking into consideration the human mind.
Of course, our system has many weak spots, shortcomings andm sometimes fails, but when it comes to judging democracy as the form of our political system, I absolutely agree with Winston Churchill who said, democracy is the worst of all forms of government, except for all the others.
India and Switzerland celebrate in 2023-24, 75 years of friendship, a success story to be continued. Indo-Swiss relations started back in 1851 when the Swiss trading company Volkart established its presence in then Bombay. Switzerland recognised and established diplomatic relations with India right after Independence in 1947. And with the Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty of 1948, the first of its kind, India has signed, a long-lasting partnership started.
Together with the whole Swiss network in India, we celebrate this auspicious anniversary with 75 events all over India. Switzerland has a close and dynamic relationship with India that is reflected in numerous treaties and agreements and in frequent high-level political and diplomatic visits. The broad-based cooperation between our nations covers many areas including trade, science, education, and culture.
Switzerland maintains an extensive network of representation throughout India to facilitate access to the various services it provides for Indian and Swiss nationals, our companies, academic partners, and cultural actors. My Consulate General is one of the largest worldwide, and this underscores the importance that Switzerland gives to the state of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai. India is a priority country for the Swiss government with excellence scholarships for foreign scholars and artists that are aimed at young researchers.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, has contributed to India’s development since 1961. Traditional bilateral development cooperation was phased out a few years ago but SDC remains active in India through its global programmes. Its current activities focus on issues related to climate change, and Switzerland aims to contribute to a climate-compatible development in India.
Switzerland and India have a long tradition of cultural relations. Many Swiss artists and researchers have been active in India including the architect Le Corbusier and the painter, sculptor, and art historian Alice Bonner. On the Indian side, filmmakers like Yash Chopra have set popular Bollywood films in the Swiss Alps, bringing the two countries closer together and having made Switzerland a dream destination for many Indians. Switzerland tourism will be eternally grateful to Yash Chopra for what he did for Switzerland as a destination.
India, with its long-term potential and its market size, has a lot to offer to Switzerland. And together with the three other countries of the European Free Trade Association, we are therefore currently negotiating a free trade agreement with India. The kind of a free trade agreement Switzerland aims at addresses a much broader aspect of bilateral exchanges than customs duties. It also covers higher levels in protection of investment and innovation, and employees’ rights. Without any doubt, such an agreement would be mutually beneficial for our two nations and elevate our relations to the next level.
On Friday and Saturday, I had the honour to welcome our Minister of Economics, Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin and to meet together with him, the Indian Minister for Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal. It actually happened here in this hotel. The very fruitful talks on Friday went into the wee hours of Saturday and continued on Saturday morning. I had exactly three and a half hours of sleep between the talks. They ended with both sides agreeing to have reached balanced solutions and a handshake between the two ministers. I am very confident that experts from India and Switzerland will swiftly manage to iron out the remaining technical issues and to ppresent the FDA in the coming weeks.
But, let us not forget that Switzerland also has much to offer to India. Switzerland has been and will continue to be a strategic partner in India’s growth story. With around 10 billion Swiss francs in foreign direct investment, Swiss companies created employment for over 150,000 Indians. My small mountainous country developed its labour force into highly skilled individuals through a strong vocational education and well-designed training possibilities.
Today, Switzerland is the most innovative country and ranks amongst the highest in the world when it comes to competitiveness, wealth creation per inhabitant, and life expectancy. Swiss companies are world leaders in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, machine manufacturing, R&D-driven technology products, financial services, banking, and insurance. As economic relations between India and Switzerland are not a one-way street, there are over 350 Swiss companies operating in India, more than half of them in Maharashtra, and about 140 Indian companies in Switzerland.
Over the years, Switzerland has emerged as the most preferred location for Indian companies expanding to Europe. Companies like Dr. Reddy’s, Aditya Birla Group, Wockhardt, and Glenmark Pharma have their regional headquarters in Switzerland. Indian technology companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra leverage Switzerland as their gateway to Europe, and have a large workforce in Switzerland.
In the last couple of years, young, well-founded tech companies with product market fitment and the financial bandwidth to expand in Europe prefer Switzerland due to its political stability, strong intellectual property laws, a multilingual workforce, and exemplary industry-academia collaboration, and of course, a high quality of life. While Switzerland is a hub for innovation, India’s strength lies in implementing the innovation at scale in a cost-effective way. Many highly innovative Swiss companies are part of this mutually beneficial Indo-Swiss partnership.
I applaud these Indian and Swiss actors for their impressive success, and I congratulate us all as valuable partners to be part of this Indo-Swiss success story. Ladies and gentlemen, we are celebrating 75 years of Indo-Swiss friendship. I am confident that we will thrive together as partners for success for many more years to come. Thank you.
ROTARIANS ASK
What has made Switzerland an economic powerhouse despite being a landlocked country?
It’s a very elaborate vocational training system. Switzerland makes sure that not only the people who go to universities but also our plumbers, carpenters and chocolate makers learn the basics of their job at a very early stage and become excellent professionals.
Why did it take so long to allow women to vote in a democratic country? Switzerland was one of the last countries in Europe to adopt this.
I was six years old when women got the right to vote and I remember at the time when I was talking to my mother, she explained to me that actually women don’t need to vote themselves; their husbands do whatever they are told by their wives. At the time, 1971, the Swiss electorate was only male, and that made it a little bit difficult to get over 50% for the women’s voting rights. But I can tell you I’m very happy that today women have the majority in our federal government, and they are very successful.
So, we are mystified and wonderstruck with the punctuality with which your trains operate. How do you make it happen? And why are we not able to do it?
Whatever we do with this friendship and collaboration, we want to intensify; it will be equally spread on both sides. Are there Indian software engineers behind that secret? I’m sure about it. Indian and Swiss engineers and brilliant minds and this is probably the secret of it.
How open is Switzerland to supporting empowerment of underprivileged women in other countries?
It’s one of my priorities as Consul General of Switzerland here in Mumbai. However, I can support, I can show them that they are not alone, but I cannot act against Indian society and the Indian Government.
Absolutely, but I just wanted to know if Switzerland is open to causes like this.
Absolutely, and not only women, also other minorities. We encourage other countries to accept and support them and wherever we can and however we can, my Consulate and I are trying to support.