Swiss firms give over CHF5 million a year to parties and candidates

Swissinfo, 8.10.2019 – The poll of 140 companies by Swiss public radio RTS found that one in five firms donate regularly to political parties or politicians, to the tune of CHF5 million annually. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, since out of the 30 firms that admitted to making donations, one-third refused to reveal the amounts. In fact, Switzerland remains the only country among the 47 members of the Council of Europe without a law governing political party financing. While the last report by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (Greco) considers Switzerland’s efforts concerning transparency in party financing to be heading in the right direction, Transparency International Switzerland says there is still plenty of work to be done.