Politically speaking, the Federal Assembly is not divided into parties, but into parliamentary groups. The groups comprise members of the same party or of similarly-platformed parties. A parliamentary group is therefore not necessarily to be equated with a party.

At least five members from the same Council are needed to form a parliamentary group. Only informal groups exist in the Council of States.

The parliamentary groups play an important part in opinion-forming processes. They examine the main issues (elections and current issues) before they are submitted to the Councils and attempt to reach a common position, which the members of parliament can defend before their Council, as well as before the media and the general public. In the National Council, members are required to be in a parliamentary group in order to be eligible to sit on a committee.

Statistics on parliamentary groups since 1912-2012 (XLS)Format Change

 

Parliamentary groups of the 52th legislative period 2023 – 2027 (State: 08.12.2023)

Group PresidentComposition / partyTotal NC CS
Swiss People's PartyV Thomas Aeschi68 SPP, 1 Lega, 2 UDF, 3 MCG74677
Social DemocratsS Samuel Bendahan
Samira Marti​		50 Social Democrats50419
The Centre Group. The Centre. EPP.M-E Philipp Matthias Bregy44 Le Centre, 2 EPP463115
FDP.The Liberal groupRL Cottier Damien
39 RDP.The Liberals3928
11
Green groupG Trede Aline26 Green Party
26233
Green liberal group GL Corina Gredig 11 GLP11101
w/o group-
 -
-
-
-

distribution in the councils (State: 08.12.2023)


Composition in the National Council and in the Council of States (State: 08.12.2023)

Bar chart showing the number of Council members belonging to each parliamentary group by Council chamber (in descending order: SVP Group, Social Democrat Group, le Groupe du Centre. PDC-PEV-BPD., FDP-Liberal Group, Green Group and Green-Liberal Group).