Lukas Reimann (born 18 September 1982) is a Swiss politician. Reimann is a member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) and a National Council. He resides in Wil in the Canton St. Gallen.
Lukas Reimann (born 18 September 1982) is a Swiss politician. Reimann is a member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) and a National Council. He resides in Wil in the Canton St. Gallen.
In 2004, at the age of 21 years, Reimann was elected to the Council of States (Kantonsrat) for the Canton of St. Gallen. At the 2007 federal elections, he was elected to the National Council, and at the age of 25, he was at the time the youngest MP in the federal parliament. [1] A fluent speaker of English, Reimann stood out early for fighting for a 2009 citizen's initiative with the aim to prohibit minarets in Switzerland. He has stated that for him "Islam does not belong to Switzerland", [2] and he participated in the international counter-jihad conference in Zurich in 2010. [3] Reimann himself rates his own positions as radical-libertarian.
Reimann became the president of the Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland in April 2014, after the last president, Pirmin Schwander stepped down for health reasons. [1]
In 2016, Reimann submitted a motion that would have withdrawn Switzerland's application for EU membership that was suspended in 1992. [4] In March 2016, the National Council accepted Reimann's motion and voted to withdraw the application. [4] [5] The motion was passed by the Council of States and then by the Federal Council in June. [6] [7] [8]
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located at the confluence of Western, Central and Southern Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's population of 9 million are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts the largest cities and economic centres, including Zürich, Geneva and Basel.
Flavio Cotti was a Swiss politician who served as member of the Federal Council from 1986 to 1999. He was a member of the Christian Democratic People's Party from the canton of Ticino. In the 1990s, Cotti led the Swiss government's unsuccessful attempts to further Switzerland's political integration into the European Union. He was President of the Confederation in 1991 and 1998 and headed the departments of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.
The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political conditions called the Copenhagen criteria, which require a stable democratic government that respects the rule of law, and its corresponding freedoms and institutions. According to the Maastricht Treaty, each current member state and the European Parliament must agree to any enlargement. The process of enlargement is sometimes referred to as European integration. This term is also used to refer to the intensification of co-operation between EU member states as national governments allow for the gradual harmonisation of national laws.
Christoph Wolfram Blocher is a Swiss industrialist and politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2004 to 2007. A member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), he headed the Federal Department of Justice and Police. As an industrialist, he became wealthy as CEO and majority shareholder in the EMS-Chemie corporation, now run by his daughter, Magdalena Martullo-Blocher.
The Swiss People's Party, also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre, is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Marco Chiesa, it is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 62 members of the National Council and 6 of the Council of States.
St. Gallen is a Swiss city and the capital of the canton of St. Gallen. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. Its economy consists mainly of the service sector. The city is home to the University of St. Gallen, one of the best business schools in Europe.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Switzerland since 1 July 2022. Legislation to open marriage to same-sex couples passed the Swiss Parliament in December 2020. The law was challenged in a referendum on 26 September 2021 by opponents of same-sex marriage and was approved with the support of 64% of voters and a majority in all 26 cantons. The law went into force on 1 July 2022. A provision of the law permitting same-sex marriages performed abroad to be recognised in Switzerland took effect on 1 January 2022.
Islam in Switzerland has mostly arrived via immigration since the late 20th century. Numbering below 1% of total population in 1980, the fraction of Muslims in the population of permanent residents in Switzerland has quintupled in thirty years, estimated at just above 5% as of 2013. A majority is from Former Yugoslavia ; an additional 20% is from Turkey. This is due to the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s, Switzerland encouraged young men from Yugoslavia and Turkey to come as guest workers. Initially these young men were only planning on staying in Switzerland temporarily, however, revised Swiss immigration laws in the 1970s permitted family regrouping. Consequently, these men ended up staying in Switzerland as these new laws allowed the wives and children of these young men into the country. Since this time period, most of the Muslim immigration to Switzerland stems from asylum seekers arriving primarily from Eastern Europe.
The Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland is a national-conservative political party in Switzerland. Its ideology is politically conservative, Protestant fundamentalist, and right-wing populist. It is similar to the Christian right in the United States, and its top goals were to promote "biblical values" and oppose other cultures and values.
Wil is the capital of the Wahlkreis (constituency) of Wil in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
Switzerland is not a member state of the European Union (EU). It is associated with the Union through a series of bilateral treaties in which Switzerland has adopted various provisions of European Union law in order to participate in the Union's single market, without joining as a member state. Among Switzerland's neighbouring countries, all but one are EU member states.
The federal popular initiative "against the construction of minarets" was a successful popular initiative in Switzerland to prevent the construction of minarets on mosques. In a November 2009 referendum, a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new minarets was approved by 57.5% of the participating voters. Only three of the twenty Swiss cantons and one half canton, mostly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, opposed the initiative.
The Green Liberal Party of Switzerland, Italian: Partito verde liberale, PVL), abbreviated to GLP, is a green-liberal political party in Switzerland. Founded in 2007, the party holds eleven seats in the Federal Assembly as of the October 2023 election.
The Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland, abbreviated to AUNS, is a political organisation in Switzerland that supports Swiss independence and neutrality.
Swiss neutrality is one of the main principles of Switzerland's foreign policy which dictates that Switzerland is not to be involved in armed conflicts between other states. This policy is self-imposed and designed to ensure external security and promote peace.
Ulrich "Ueli" Maurer is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2009 to 2022. A member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), he was President of the Swiss Confederation in 2013 and 2019. Formerly head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports (2009–2015), Maurer has headed the Federal Department of Finance from 2016 to 2022. From 2019 to 2022, he was the longest-serving sitting member of the Federal Council.
Erika Forster-Vannini is a Swiss businesswoman and former politician. She served as a member on the Council of States (Switzerland) for The Liberals from 1995 to 2011, which she presided from 2009 to 2010. Between 1988 and 1996 she served on the Grand Council of St. Gallen, which she presided in 1994/1995.
Sibel Arslan is a Turkish-born Swiss lawyer and politician who currently serves on the National Council (Switzerland) for the movement BastA!. There she concurrently also is a representative to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 2020. She previously served on the Grand Council of Basel-Stadt between 2005 and 2016.
Ignazio Daniele Giovanni Cassis is a Swiss physician and politician who has been a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 1 November 2017. A member of FDP.The Liberals, Cassis was elected to the Federal Council on 20 September 2017 following the resignation of Didier Burkhalter. He has headed the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs since he took office. On 8 December 2021, Cassis was elected President of the Swiss Confederation for 2022.
Trix Heberlein-Ruff is a Swiss politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and a former president of the National Council of Switzerland.
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