The collection of signatures for the federal popular initiative "For the effective protection of constitutional
rights" - the Sovereignty Initiative for short - has been underway in Switzerland
since October 17, 2023.
The collection deadline is April 17, 2025.
The initiative aims to prevent international organizations, such as the WHO, from
being able to determine Switzerland's health policy with the planned pandemic treaty.
A press conference was also held at the launch of the initiative with
the following representatives of the committee:
Nicolas A. Rimoldi, Dr. Roland Bühlmann, Petra Burri and SVP National Councillor Jean-Luc Addor.
Rimoldi, who co-chairs the committee with Bühlmann, made it clear at the press conference that the
initiative is neither left-wing nor right-wing.
The initiative is broadly supported, with the aim of protecting the fundamental rights enshrined in the Federal
Constitution from the influence of international organizations such as the EU, WHO and others.
This is because fundamental rights - such as freedom of opinion or freedom of assembly - would
know no party colors and would affect all people.
If these were abolished, everyone would suffer, says Rimoldi.
Listen to some excerpts from the 40-minute press conference on the launch
of the sovereignty initiative:
This initiative is intended to definitively protect constitutional rights from the influence
of international organizations such as the EU, the WHO and others.
The aim of the sovereignty initiative is, quite simply, to ensure that no international agreements
can violate our constitutional rights, both retroactively and for all treaties
to come in the future.
Normally, when an international agreement such as a framework agreement, the WHO pandemic
pact or others come along, politicians come along and weigh up the interests involved:
Is this treaty in the public interest, is it moderate, can people be trusted to
accept this restriction of fundamental rights?
We believe that a new approach is needed, a paradigm shift is needed so that in future
we are once again the boss here, the sovereignty of the people applies and the
democratic rights of the Swiss are not undermined by the EU, Brussels,
the WHO and others.
In the future, in the new Switzerland that we want to create here together, the people will once
again be the boss and not unelected, undemocratic, corrupt, supranational organizations.
To give just two examples: In January
2022, Ignazio Cassis, then President of the Swiss Confederation, said in the SRF Arena: 'If
someone dies in a car accident but has a positive PCR test, that's a corona
death in the statistics.
This was not decided by the Federal Council, but by the WHO.
' We have to say that at this moment it is obvious to everyone that it is not the Federal Council, our
elected representatives, who make the policy that applies here in Switzerland, but an organization like
the WHO, and of course that is not possible, because we here are the sovereign and not others.
Karin Keller-Sutter was quoted in the NZZ on the Ukraine sanctions:
'We cannot decide on our own, we have to wait and see what the EU decides.
' And that really brings us to the fundamental problem of our time.
The corona policy, the climate policy, Woke, all these agendas that are abolishing our fundamental rights across a wide
range of areas, restricting our freedoms and making life increasingly difficult and expensive, these
are robbing us of our fundamental rights.
All this is not happening because our politicians in Bern like to do it, but because
they are carrying out international agendas.
The basic problem of the present time, where corona was only a symptom, the corona policy
of it, are the international agreements that abolish our fundamental rights.
That is why we are here today, to solve this problem, that is why we are here today with a broad committee,
with an initiative that is being launched to ensure for all time that foreign bailiffs
rule over Switzerland.
And we in the Friends of the Constitution actually see our main task as strengthening
democracy, strengthening direct democracy.
And for this reason, we must of course question what commitments Switzerland is entering into
or has already entered into, because every surrender of Swiss rights is also
a surrender of civil rights.
Every surrender of rights weakens civil rights.
And in any case, we must prevent international organizations from interfering with fundamental
rights and directly intervening in the lives of people in Switzerland without
any democratic control.
Citizens are not even asked whether they want this and certainly not how they want it.
The sovereignty initiative is based on the uniform fundamental idea that Switzerland's
national sovereignty should not be undermined by international treaties
or other obligations.
Switzerland first.
For it is international law itself that regards national sovereignty as the cornerstone
of every state and prohibits interference in the political independence
or internal cooperation of a state.
This can also be found in the UN Charter.
It is completely undisputed that international law and thus also international treaties are
necessary for reasons of legal certainty as soon as life issues are
not limited to a single country.
Of course, people trade across borders, start families, travel
and, unfortunately, crime does not stop at national borders.
Of course, all of this requires international law, otherwise every contact with foreign countries
would potentially turn into bureaucratic hell.
However, as much as international treaties are often an engine of freedom, because they sometimes simplify
cross-border contacts between private individuals, they always and increasingly
encroach on national sovereignty.
After all, every state undertakes to comply with certain requirements by
entering into an international treaty.
This is in the nature of things.
This is actually unproblematic as long as it does not interfere with a
country's key political decisions.
Because the premature surrender of individual freedom and political independence always leads to
a massive weakening of national sovereignty.
And a self-confident, proud country to which its national sovereignty means something does not conclude
international treaties such as a framework agreement or the WHO pandemic pact, by which
it relinquishes essential aspects of its competences or the give and
take are obviously imbalanced.
We want to restore this balance with the sovereignty initiative.
The signature forms can be ordered from today on the website www.grundrechte-ja.ch.
You can also see the initiative committee there.
You can join a support committee there.
I am delighted to be working with so many wonderful people to save the sovereignty of the people and the state.
Thank you very much, goodbye everyone.