Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern!

The Fourth of July is a historic date in Switzerland as well as in the US. There's the Miracle of Bern in 1954, when West Germany beat heavy favourites Hungary in the final of the football World Cup, held in the Swiss capital. Then exactly ten years ago scientists at CERN in Geneva successfully ended a decades-long quest for a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson. And today, the Swiss city of Lugano is hosting the Ukraine Reform Conference. More on that below.

Keystone / Anatoly Maltsev

In the news:  Yves Rossier, the former Swiss ambassador to Moscow, squarely blames Russia for the war in Ukraine, but he says the West and Ukraine made mistakes in the run-up to the war.

• “If you want to hurt Russia, you have to be prepared to suffer,” Rossier added, regarding the sanctions imposed on Russia. This means the West will have to completely wean itself off oil and gas. “What’s more, sanctions never lead to a change in a country’s foreign policy,” he said, pointing to Iran and North Korea.
• The price of household goods for Swiss consumers rose by 3.4% in June compared with the same month last year, led by the surging cost of fuel and heating oil. The Swiss energy regulator has already warned households to expect energy bill increases of up to 47% next year.
• Almost every second person in Switzerland lives in a household with at least one type of debt. Vehicle leases and arrears are the most common types of debt. In 2020, 15.5% of the population lived in a household with at least one vehicle lease and 14.9% in a household with at least one arrear in the past 12 months, the Federal Statistical Office saidExternal link today.

© Keystone / Michael Buholzer

The southern Swiss city of Lugano is hosting the Ukraine Reform Conference to plan how to rebuild Ukraine. What can the two-day summit, which started today, bring to the war-ravaged country? And what does Switzerland hope to achieve? 

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis called on delegatesExternal link to agree on a “Lugano Declaration” for the sustainable recovery of Ukraine. “Russia’s act of aggression against Ukraine has forced us to unite and face up to this war with all the determination that we can muster, and to commit ourselves to supporting the sorely tried Ukrainian people on the long road to sustainable recovery,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) addressed the conference by video link from Kyiv. “Russia’s war is not just an attempt to take our country, but a challenge to the European system,” he said. “The reconstruction of Ukraine is therefore not just a local matter, but the task of the entire democratic world.”

The conference had already been scheduled as an edition of the Ukraine Reform Conference before the Russian invasion in February. It was attended by several international politicians, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Keystone / Lukas Lehmann

Not long ago some US media were touting the River Aare, which runs through the Swiss capital Bern, as possibly the best river in the world for swimming in. Yet the local tourist board is no longer actively promoting the highly popular activity during the summer months.

Local newspapers Der Bund and Berner Zeitunghave tried to find outExternal link what’s behind the move. But the tourist board seems evasive, saying that floating down the river hasn’t been promoted actively for a while. Instead, Bern is trying to attract visitors with medieval fountains in the old town, its bars, gentle riverside strolls, or local artisan ice cream.

A tourism expert said he saw no harm in the change of strategy as only very few visitors come to Bern for a dip in the river. The tourist board denies any link with the death in May of a tourist from Indonesia.