Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern, where the noise around the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano is fading after two days of action; we’ve gathered the echoes from today’s newspapers here. All the rest of Wednesday’s news and updates below.

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In the news: abortions stable, bankruptcies rising, Locarno looming.

• A total of 10,869 abortions were recorded in Switzerland in 2021, or 6.7 per 1,000 women, the Federal Statistical Office said on Wednesday. The rate was practically the same as in 2020, when 6.8 abortions per 1,000 women were recorded. Women over the age of 30 made up the majority of cases, at 52%. Aborting during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy was legalised in Switzerland following a nationwide vote in 2002.
• The Locarno film festival unveiled today its programme for the upcoming edition to start on August 3. Bullet Train, an action thriller starring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock, is to kick off the festival; it’s one of 17 films which will be screened on Locarno’s 8,000-seat open air Piazza Grande arena. A retrospective will also honour Douglas Sirk, the German director known for his 1950s Hollywood melodramas. 
• Bankruptcies in Switzerland rose by 40% in the first six months of 2022 compared to last year, the information service Creditreform said on Wednesday. The figures suggest that the generous state financial support during the pandemic may have kept bankruptcy figures artificially low until now. The chemical, pharma, and services sector are most affected, Creditreform said.

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Cliché wars – what did you just call me?!

The word “Bünzli” refers to a person (or a culture) which is overly fond of order: not in a fascist way, rather from a pedantic desire for predictability and normality. Ukrainian journalist and refugee Olha Petriv, who now works for Swiss media site Blick, and who has been explaining her new home to fellow Ukrainians, has noticed this. “Swiss people love rules, and love making new rules!” she says in her latest clipExternal link. Some of the “strange things” which prove this alleged Swiss narrow-mindedness: rules about glass recycling at night-time, punctuality, speaking in a loud voice on the train, and making sure to always eat “Aromat” food seasoning.

Naturally, this (tongue-in-cheek?) list of clichés was received rather badly by sections of the online Bünzli community, who bashed Petriv on Twitter and other such places, saying things like “Did somebody ask her? Did anybody say she had to stay here? There are almost 200 countries in the world. Bon voyage.” (This comment appeared under a 20 Minuten article which went to the trouble of interviewing a sociologist about the issue). Today, even the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper got in on the debate, with a pieceExternal link which argued that Swiss people should be “proud” of their Bünzli nature – a key factor in maintaining the “safe, clean, and quiet paradise” which is Switzerland.

But why all the noise? Has Petriv brought up a real sore point? Do the Swiss – as the Tages-Anzeiger put it – get disproportionately het up when foreigners poke fun at their boringness? Or is it all just another online argument about a stereotype that might once have contained truth, but which is now empty and self-sustaining? And what about Petriv’s (Swiss) colleague in the video, who says “we’re all a bit Bünzli, but we also feel good about it” – is it ok to poke fun at Bünzlis when you’re a Bünzli, but not when you’re not? Or is it all just material for the slow summer journalistic months? So many questions and clichés, while far from the Bünzlis, the bombs are still going off.