Letters

Switzerland – where power is delegated to the people

Lessons for Ireland in confederate model of government

Tue Mar 26 2024 - 00:07

Sir, – David McWilliams has written a very interesting piece about the lessons this island might be able to learn from looking at the confederate model of government in Switzerland which was designed to push the centre of gravity downwards, away from national focus, into the cantons (“Ireland needs a dose of ‘Protestant pragmatism’, where power is delegated to the people”, News Review, March 23rd).

I agree that it must be helpful to look at how other countries manage their affairs.

There is one other successful example to study and it is a more recent experiment.

It concerns the Alto Adige region of northeast Italy which is inhabited by Italians and Austrians, all Catholic but otherwise very distinct groups. It goes back to the time when this region was ruled by Austria-Hungary. Two world wars created all kinds of stresses and strains, with the two countries at odds in the first, but allied in the second. Alto Adige, or Süd Tyrol, is part of Italy but the profile is not unlike Switzerland. The Dolomite mountains are shared and every town and village seems to have two names, for example, Vipiteno is also called Sterzing; you’ll soon learn that if you step on a train from Innsbruck to Bolzano. Just like the train from Belfast to Derry/Londonderry.

READ MORE

After some headaches, Italy and Austria seemed to come up with a workable solution in the 1950s.

It involves a large measure of local autonomy, based on the demographic reality that the territory does not belong to one group or the other, but to both. – Yours, etc,

DAVID McCARTER,

Hillsborough,

Co Down.

Sir, – David McWilliams suggests that there should be a federal Ireland that could be created to allow unionists to govern themselves. “Who could resist that?”, he adds. Well, any genuine unionist could: in a federal Ireland there would be ex-unionists only. In common with so many other commentators, David McWilliams (who appears to regard unionist and Protestant as identical terms) has failed to understand that unionism is a political allegiance: no United Kingdom, no unionists. – Yours, etc,

CDC ARMSTRONG,

Belfast.

Sir, – The key thing about the Swiss way of governing themselves is that, about four times a year, they have referendum days to discuss and decide on what it means to be Swiss. These days are long-scheduled; that is, not held at the whim of the incumbent government, as here. Local, cantonal and national issues are voted on, which can be binding or advisory. As an example, just think about what happened in Lucerne/Luzern in September 2022.

A majority of this mainly Catholic German-speaking canton voted to stop the Swiss federal government funding a new barracks in the Vatican for the Swiss Guard. The argument was that the Vatican should fund the building. In our Republic, we need a similar way of having conversations leading to decisions on how we manage our responses to changes in our world.

Why wait until the governing networks of incumbents and insiders feel that they can ask us to decide on something they think vital, such as the recent referendums? We can trust ourselves to add this complementary tool to our way of governing ourselves for our common good. – Yours, etc,

DONAL O’BROLCHÁIN,

Drumcondra,

Dublin 9.

A chara, – In his column on pragmatism and Protestantism, or Calvinism, David McWilliams equates these as the reason for the efficacy of Switzerland, both political and economic. The Confoederatio Helvetica was created in 1848 with a Protestant population of 59.3 per cent. Of the 26 cantons that exist today their population was dominated by Protestantism in only 10 cantons at the time. Three other cantons had slightly above half. The population identifying today as Protestant is 20.5 per cent. All cantons have equal status. Therefore, it is not religion but cantonal cooperation that matters. – Is mise,

Dr AODÁN Ó COCHÚIR,

Poitiers,

France.