GENEVA — Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as all men must do already.
Official results. with counting still ongoing in some areas after a referendum, showed that more than half of Switzerland’s cantons, or states, had rejected the “citizen service initiative” by wide margins. That meant it was defeated, because proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.
Voters also heavily rejected a separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million), with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Supporters of the national service plan hoped that it would boost social cohesion by adding jobs in areas like environmental prevention, food security and elderly care.
But lawmakers opposed it, mainly for cost reasons and out of concern that it could hurt the economy by taking many young people out of the workforce.
The national service proposal came at a time when other European countries are finding ways to bolster