Well, progressive originally meant marching forward, making progress [1]. As such it is literally the opposite of conservative, which means "disposed to retain and maintain what is established, opposed to innovation and change," or, in a negative sense, "opposed to progress" [2].

[1] from Etymology Online (!ety on DDG): "characterized by advancement, going forward, moving onward" (in action, character, etc.), from progress (n.) + -ive, or else from French progressif, from past participle stem of Latin progredi. From the notion of "using one's efforts toward advancement or improvement" comes the meaning "characterized by striving for change and innovation, avant-garde, liberal" (in arts, etc.), from 1908; of jazz, from 1947. In the socio-political sense "favoring reform; radically liberal" it emerged in various British contexts from the 1880s; in the U.S. it was given to a movement active in the 1890s and a generation thereafter, the name being taken again from time to time, most recently by some more liberal Democrats and other social activists, by c. 2000.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/progressive

[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/conservative

I think you mean liberal and not progressive, in the "classical liberal" sense (though the US seems to have a different meaning for this, so I'm not sure if that matches well). Switzerland is economically liberal and socially very conservative. I don't know what you mean by European style politics, I cannot see what the country system has in common with the EU, but we regularly clash with EU's politics and refused multiple time to join the union.

Classical "liberals" were similar. Believed in free speech, free markets, rule by law. Languages change in interesting ways when people all pile on to a "positive word" that they want to be, but that changes the meaning of the word. It's like iterative word redefinition.