Shorter route to the Federal Council thanks to new internet platform

The new internet platform Direktzumbundesrat.ch promises citizens a direct line to the Federal Council. Anyone can submit their concerns without having to go through the authorities. Anyone can submit their concerns on the website - but before the contribution is published on the site, it is checked for seriousness. Once this hurdle has been passed, the contribution is made public and can be freely viewed. The site is intended to communicate problems from the bottom up and make politicians more aware of them, as can be read in an SDA press release. This should be made possible without the direct democratic process. In this way, the whole of Switzerland will be able to read what issues are on people's minds and how the Federal Council is responding to them. The project was initiated by a group of students from Switzerland and the EU. Such services also exist in Austria, Poland, Italy, France, Great Britain and Norway, but are not yet used. The site for Germany is very busy. It was the first to go live on October 3, 2006.