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Report nowThe National Council has clearly rejected the idea of upgrading the two cantons of Basel to full cantons. This means that Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft will retain only half a cantonal vote - as they have done since 1848.
After the Council of States, the National Council also clearly said no: the so-called half-cantons remain half-cantons. The large chamber rejected a proposal from Basel-Stadt by 121 votes to 51 with 22 abstentions.
The city canton wanted Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft to be considered "full cantons" in future - with two seats each in the Council of States instead of just one, and with a full instead of a half cantonal vote in referendums.
Basel-Stadt argued for equal treatment: since the major revision of the constitution in 2000, Switzerland has officially only known "cantons" - the word "half-canton" no longer appears in the constitutional text.
The cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden only count as half cantons when it comes to constitutional amendments.
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Despite this, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden still have less weight today: only one instead of two members of the Council of States and only half a cantonal vote.
This vote of the cantons counts, for example, in the so-called "majority of the cantons", which is required for constitutional amendments - i.e. when not only the majority of the population, but also the majority of the cantons have to agree.
But why did Parliament not want to change this?
The responsible committee of the National Council points to the fine balance in the federal state between small and large cantons, between urban and rural areas, between German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.
If all six half-cantons were given a full vote, this balance would be upset: the German-speaking cantons would gain more weight, while French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland - "Latin Switzerland" - would be politically weakened.
Historically, the division goes back a long way. Appenzell split into two halves in 1597 for religious reasons. Basel-Landschaft broke away in 1833 following an uprising against the domination of the city.
When Switzerland became a federal state in 1848, the equal rights of the cantons were intended to secure the federal balance - and above all to protect the smaller, often Catholic-conservative cantons from the superiority of the larger, liberal-Protestant cantons. The "half" status of the separate cantons was retained. Even the separation of the canton of Jura from Bern, decided in a referendum in 1978 and completed in 1979, did nothing to change this: Jura became the 26th full canton because devaluing Bern as a populous canton was politically out of the question.
The proponents of a revaluation - including SP National Councillor Samira Marti from Basel-Landschaft - consider the reference to the federal balance to be outdated. This is constantly changing anyway, and it is no longer in keeping with the current constitution that some cantons count less than others. Marti called on the Federal Council to at least show what a fair solution could look like. But there was no majority for this either.
Political scientist Rahel Freiburghaus from the University of Lausanne is also skeptical about a reform. She told the "Aargauer Zeitung" newspaper that any change to the system would open up a bottomless pit: You would have to rebalance the whole relationship between the cantons.
Although Swiss federalism is fundamentally capable of reform, it is hardly capable of reform when it comes to the votes of the cantons. "If you start turning one screw, you would have to turn a lot of other screws," Freiburghaus told the Aargauer Zeitung. Parliament apparently has a similar view.
