Federal Assembly (Switzerland)


The Federal Assembly is Switzerland's federal legislature. It meets in Bern in the Federal Palace.
The Federal Assembly is bicameral, being composed of the 200-seat National Council and the 46-seat Council of States. The houses have identical powers. Members of both houses represent the cantons, but, whereas seats in the National Council are distributed in proportion to population, each canton has two seats in the Council of States, except the six 'half-cantons', which have one seat each. Both are elected in full once every four years, with the last election being held in 2019.
The Federal Assembly possesses the federal government's legislative power, along with the separate constitutional right of citizen's initiative. For a law to pass, it must be passed by both houses. The two houses may come together as a United Federal Assembly in certain circumstances, such as to elect the Federal Council, the Federal Chancellor, the federal judges or a general.

History

The Federal Assembly was created in 1848, with the rise of Switzerland as a federal state. The previous central institution was the Federal Diet of Switzerland.

Composition

The Federal Assembly is made up of two chambers:
Seats in the National Council are allocated to the cantons proportionally, based on population. In the Council of States, every canton has two seats.

United Federal Assembly

On occasions the two houses sit jointly as the "United Federal Assembly". This is done to:
The United Federal Assembly is presided by the National Council's presidency.
The Federal Assembly also confirms the appointment of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

Groups

Parties can cooperate in parliamentary groups, allowing smaller parties access to rights as part of a caucus. At least five members from the same Council are needed to form a group. Only informal groups exist in the Council of States. Members of the National Council are required to be in a formal group in order to be able to sit on a committee.
Since March 2009, there have been six groups in the Federal Assembly.
The latest group to form was the Conservative Democratic Party which split off the Swiss People's Party in 2008.
The Christian Democrats/EPP/glp Group was formed after the 2007 elections, out of the former Christian Democratic and EPP groups.
The current FTP/Liberal group was formed in 2003 out of the former FDP and Liberal groups; since the 2009 fusion of the Free Democrati and Liberal Parties, RL is once again a single-party group. In 2011, the CEg was disbanded, the Green Liberals formed their own parliamentary group and the three Christian parties formed the Christian-Evangelical Group.
Currently, the six parliamentary groups are composed as follows: