BERN-Swiss cit­i­zens ap­pear to be lead­ing the way on Eu­ro­pean aus­ter­i­ty, re­ject­ing a min­i­mum six weeks paid hol­i­day a year in a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum yes­ter­day. Switzer­land count­ed bal­lots yes­ter­day for five na­tion­al ref­er­en­dums, in­clud­ing one pushed by a union to raise the min­i­mum hol­i­day up from four weeks, which is the stan­dard used in Ger­many, Italy, Rus­sia and oth­er Eu­ro­pean na­tions.

The Swiss heed­ed warn­ings from gov­ern­ment and busi­ness that more va­ca­tion would raise labour costs and put the econ­o­my at risk. Swiss pub­lic broad­cast­er SSR said two-thirds of vot­ers and all of the can­tons (states) had re­ject­ed the mea­sure, which re­quired ma­jor­i­ty ap­proval of all fed­er­al and can­ton­al vot­ers.

"In re­ject­ing the ini­tia­tive, cit­i­zens have kept a sense of re­al­i­ty," said Hans-Ul­rich Bigler, di­rec­tor of the Swiss Union of Arts and Crafts, which rep­re­sents around 300,000 busi­ness­es. The ref­er­en­dum, he said in a state­ment, could have added 6 bil­lion francs (US$6.52 bil­lion) a year in labour costs to the Swiss econ­o­my.

AP