Harvested palm oil fruit in East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia.
Swiss voters backed a trade deal with Indonesia and a ban on people covering their face in public.
The trade agreement was supported by 51.6% of ballots, the government said on Sunday, an outcome signaled by a poll. Voters got a say after environmentalists argued the trade agreement let palm-oil producers off the hook too easily.
Public Support
Swiss voters backed a trade deal with Indonesia in a referendum
Source: Swiss government
Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer of the oil -- used in everything from chocolate to shampoo -- and the trade deal reduces tariffs on imports of certified sustainable production.
The Swiss government argued the deal would help sustainable production, but members of the Green Party and other activists fear sustainability labels for palm oil aren’t credible and that practices that hurt the environment won’t be stopped.
Read more: Unilever Uses Satellites, Phones to Track Sustainable Palm
The ban on full face coverings is designed to forbid Islamic full-face veils and received a backing of 51.2%.
It’s been spearheaded by a group close to the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party, which in 2009 successfully pushed through a national ban on the construction of minarets. Austria and France have already enacted similar laws.
Women’s groups and the Social Democrats campaigned against the prohibition, saying it’s discriminatory.
Now that it has been approved, national law will need to be amended and the government will then put the measure into force.
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March 07, 2021 at 06:23PM
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Swiss Vote Yes to Indonesia Trade Deal and Ban on Face-Veils - Bloomberg
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