Parmelin’s ledger: deals abroad, drift at home

Guy Parmelin’s years at the head of the Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research have been less about grand design than about keeping the show on the road. That may sound modest, but in Bern modesty often passes for virtue, especially when the alternative is a minister who confuses movement with progress.

The pandemic gave him his first and most immediate trial. When the lockdown began on 16 March 2020, Parmelin was in charge of the economic response, and short-time work together with Covid aid kept many firms alive through the shutdown. The official measures were not lifted completely until spring 2022. During that period, which also included his first presidential year in 2021, he and Alain Berset appeared repeatedly in public to reassure both the population and businesses.

His better results came in foreign economic policy. Parmelin helped bring free-trade agreements with India and Indonesia to completion; the Indonesian deal entered into force at the end of 2021, while the Indian one did so a year ago. He also improved the agreement with China from Switzerland’s point of view at the end of August. The next major file is Mercosur, involving Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The Federal Council signed that agreement a year ago, and Parliament is now debating it.

The United States then provided the sort of reminder that trade policy is rarely a seminar exercise. In August 2025, Swiss products were hit with tariffs of 39 per cent. Parmelin travelled to Washington in November and reached an understanding with the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer. The tariffs were then cut to 15 per cent and now stand mostly at 12.5 per cent. He also brought in leading Swiss companies, which pledged investments worth a total of 200 billion US dollars.

Europe was another test, though of a different kind. As Federal President this year, Parmelin played a central role in the Bilaterals III and signed the package in Brussels on 2 March together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. For business groups such as Economiesuisse, getting the bilateral dossier over the line is the key issue. The political irony is obvious enough: Parmelin is representing a package that his own party, the SVP, opposes.

At home, the agricultural balance sheet is much less impressive. The big reform never materialised. Parmelin did push the Agricultural Policy 2022+ through Parliament, but only in a stripped-down form after the chamber had sent the original back for tightening in 2020. Since early September, the next reform, AP30+, has been in consultation and is supposed to strengthen food security in Switzerland. He also campaigned against the drinking water and pesticide initiatives in June 2021, both of which were rejected. Even so, the number of agricultural businesses continued to fall under his watch.

That leaves a record with clear strengths and equally clear limits. Parmelin proved more effective as a dealmaker than as a reformer, more useful in crisis management and trade than in the slow grind of domestic agriculture. For a country that likes to praise pragmatism, that may be enough. For anyone waiting for a real agricultural overhaul, it plainly was not.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com