Council of States (Switzerland)

Council of States German: Ständerat French: Conseil des Etats Italian: Consiglio degli Stati Template:Lang-rm
Type
Type	Upper house
Leadership
President	Claude Hêche, SPS/PSS since 24 November 2014
First Vice President	Raphaël Comte, FDP/PLR since 24 November 2014
Second Vice President	Ivo Bischofberger, CVP/PDC since 24 November 2014
Structure
Seats	46
Political groups	Government parties (43)   CVP/PDC 13   FDP/PLR 13   SP/PS 12   SVP/UDC 5 Opposition parties (3)   Greens (GPS/PES) 1   BDP/PBD 1   Independent 1
Elections
Last election	18 October 2015
Meeting place
Federal Palace of Switzerland, Bern
Website
http://www.parliament.ch/

The Council of States (German: Ständerat, French: Conseil des Etats, Italian: Consiglio degli Stati, Template:Lang-rm) is the smaller chamber of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, and is considered the Assembly's upper house, with the National Council being the lower house. There are 46 Councillors.

Twenty of the country's cantons are represented by two Councillors each. Six cantons, traditionally called "half cantons", are represented by one Councillor each for historical reasons. These are Obwalden, Nidwalden, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Appenzell Innerrhoden.

The Councillors serve for four years, and are not bound in their vote to instructions from the Cantonal authorities. Under the Swiss Federal Constitution, the mode of election is left to the cantons, the proviso being that it must be a democratic method. However, all cantons now provide for the councillors to be chosen by popular election. In all cantons except for Zug and Appenzell Innerrhoden, the Councillors are elected concurrently with the members of the National Council. In the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden the representatives are elected by the physically convened popular assembly (Landsgemeinde). With the exception of the Canton of Jura, where a proportional representation election system is used, the representatives are elected by majority vote.

Working languages

In debates, German (High German) and French are used. Italian and Romansh are not used in debates. Debates are not interpreted, which means all representatives must understand German and French.

List of members

Main article: List of members of the Swiss Council of States (2015–19)

Seats by party

  Summary of the 2015 Council of States of Switzerland results

Parties		Ideology	2011	Seats	±
width=5px style="background-color: Template:Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC)	Christian democracy	13	13	±0
style="background-color: Template:Free Democratic Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	FDP.The Liberals (FDP/PRD)	Classical liberalism	11	13	+2
style="background-color: Template:Social Democratic Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	Social Democratic Party (SPS/PSS)	Social democracy	11	12	+1
style="background-color: Template:Swiss People's Party/meta/color" |	Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC)	National conservatism	5	5	±0
style="background-color: Template:Green Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	Green Party (GPS/PES)	Green politics	2	1	-1
style="background-color: Template:Green Liberal Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	Green Liberal Party (GLP/PVL)	Green liberalism	2	0	-2
style="background-color: Template:Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland/meta/color" |	Conservative Democratic Party (BDP/PBD)	Conservatism / Economic liberalism	1	1	±0
style="background-color: Template:Independent politician/meta/color" |	Independent	Independent	1	1	±0
Total			46	46
Source: https://www.ch.ch/en/elections2015/resultate-staenderat/staenderat-a-z/

Past seat compositions by party

2011 election

Further information: List of members of the Swiss Council of States (2011–15)

2007 election

Further information: List of members of the Swiss Council of States (2007–11)

Population per seat

The Council of States represents the federal nature of Switzerland: seats are distributed by state (canton), not by population. Consequently, the number of people represented by a single seat in the Council of State varies by a factor of 40, from 15,000 for Appenzell Innerrhoden to 600,000 for Zurich.

Abbr	Canton	Seats	Population ¹	per seat	²
ZH	Zurich	2	1,446,400	723,200	1.0
BE	Bern	2	1,009,400	504,700	1.4
VD	Vaud	2	761,400	380,700	1.9
AG	Aargau	2	645,300	322,650	2.2
BL	Basel-Landschaft	1	281,300	281,300	2.6
SG	St. Gallen	2	495,800	247,900	2.9
GE	Geneva	2	477,400	238,700	3.0
LU	Lucerne	2	394,600	197,300	3.7
BS	Basel-Stadt	1	190,600	190,600	3.8
TI	Ticino	2	350,400	175,200	4.1
VS	Valais	2	331,800	165,900	4.4
FR	Fribourg	2	303,400	151,700	4.8
TG	Thurgau	2	263,700	131,850	5.5
SO	Solothurn	2	263,700	131,850	5.5
GR	Graubünden	2	195,900	97,950	7.4
NE	Neuchâtel	2	177,300	88,650	8.2
SZ	Schwyz	2	152,800	76,400	9.5
ZG	Zug	2	120,100	60,050	12.0
AR	Appenzell Ausserrhoden	1	54,100	54,100	13.4
NW	Nidwalden	1	42,100	42,100	17.2
SH	Schaffhausen	2	79,400	39,700	18.2
OW	Obwalden	1	36,800	36,800	19.7
JU	Jura	2	72,400	36,200	20.0
GL	Glarus	2	39,800	19,900	36.3
UR	Uri	2	36,000	18,000	40.2
AI	Appenzell Innerrhoden	1	15,900	15,900	45.5
Overall		46	8,237,700	179,080	4.0

Notes: ¹ Population data from 2014 (source). ² Relative representation compared to Zürich.

See also

• List of members of the Swiss Council of States (2007-2011)
• List of members of the Swiss Council of States (2003-2007)
• List of Presidents of the Swiss Council of States

Bibliography

• Federal Chancellor Corina Casanova, ed. (28 April 2015), The Swiss Confederation – A Brief Guide 2015 (PDF), Berne, Switzerland: Swiss Confederation, retrieved 4 January 2016

External links

• http://www.parlament.ch/e/organe-mitglieder/Pages/default.aspx