Swiss President Arnold Koller today announced his government’s intention to set up a $4.7 billion humanitarian aid fund next year. The fund will provide assistance to victims of disaster and persecution throughout the world. Koller stated explicitly that one of its objects will be to give aid to Nazi victims and Holocaust survivors.
The Swiss government and the central bank will finance the fund through the sale of part of Switzerland’s gold reserves. Before that, Swiss law will be amended, such that the value of the gold on the central bank’s balance sheet will be determined according to market values, and not according to an arbitrary valuation, as is the current practice. This amendment will quadruple the value of the reserves, which at the end of the process will stand at some $36 billion. On this reckoning, in the next ten years Switzerland will sell about 13% of its gold reserves.
Koller emphasised that if the establishment of the fund is approved, it will be set up in place of the government and central bank contributions to the aid fund for Nazi victims decided on last week. It is thought that Switzerland decided to announce this step now out of fear of the grave findings expected next month in two reports on its gold trade with Nazi Germany.
The governor of the Swiss central bank, Hans Meier, today said that Switzerland’s action need not affect the world gold market and the stability of the franc. However, immediately after the Swiss announcement, the gold price fell 1% to $357 an ounce.
A senior source in the Jewish organisations told "Globes" that he believes that the Swiss announcement "indicates the order of size of the compromise arrangement we will reach" in the affair of the Holocaust victims’ deposits. Jewish Agency chairman Avraham Burg welcomed the announcement, but said that he would have to study its details and the way the fund would operate in practice.
Establishing the humanitarian aid fund will apparently entail legislation. This is because any expenditure out of the state budget and from the central bank’s reserves requires legislation, and will probably also have to be put to a referendum. Because of this, President Koller today estimated that the fund will only be set up next year.
Legislation in Switzerland is a lengthy, complicated process. The five months it took to set up the committee of historians charged with examining Bern’s policy in WW2 is regarded in Switzerland as "record time". Any proposed legislation - including a government initiative, such as establishing the fund in question - involves drafting of a bill by a committee of experts. The bill is sent for consultations to the country’s 13 cantons, to political parties, and various other interested groups. In addition, the bill is examined by government officialdom.
Once it is approved by the government, the bill is submitted to the lower house in the parliament. It is first of all debated in the appropriate committee, and then in the plenum. The lower house has 200 members, currently representing 11 parties. After that, the bill goes to the upper, 46 member house, for discussion in committee and in the plenum. As is the USA, both houses must pass the law with the same wording, and without agreement the legislative procedure cannot be completed.
After being debated in the upper house, the law goes back for a final vote in both houses. Within 90 days of the law being passed, any 50,000 voters (out of some 4.5 million people with the right to vote) can demand a referendum on it. In the case of a change to the constitution, a referendum is compulsory. The referendum should take place within a few weeks of the petition being submitted. Any law can be set aside with a simple majority.
In the light of public opinion polls in Switzerland on the subject of the Holocaust deposits affair and the country’s record in the Second World War, it would be fair to assume that the 50,000 signatures required could be mustered with relative ease. For that reason, one would expect a referendum to be held on the matter in the closing months of 1997 or at the beginning of 1998. On past experience, government and media support for the law will by no means guarantee its passage.