Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

Political parties and candidates are gearing up for the federal elections on October 22 and attempting to woo citizens at home and abroad. Campaign posters can be seen dotted across the country. Which parties have the most to spend on political campaigns and who are the donors behind them? New figures today give some interesting insights.

Read on to find out more and for other news and stories from Switzerland.

This content was published on September 21, 2023 - 18:00

5 minutes

Born in London, Simon is a multimedia journalist who has worked for www.swissinfo.ch since 2006. He speaks French, German and Spanish and focuses on science, technology and innovation issues.

In the news: European university ranking, Gruyère cheese protection, Tamedia job cuts and a national folk music festival.

Switzerland must do more to defendGruyère cheese and other products that have a protected status in Switzerland, according to the Swiss House of Representatives.
The Swiss media group Tamedia, which publishes the Tages-Anzeiger and Tribune de Genève newspapers, has announced around 50 job cuts in German- and French-speaking Switzerland.
The federal technology institute ETH Zurich came secondExternal link in the QS ranking of European universities behind the University of Oxford and ahead of the University of Cambridge. The Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) was ranked tenth.
In Switzerland, 32,000 people were hospitalised each year between 2012 and 2019 due to side effects ofmedications.
The town of Bellinzona in southern Switzerland is hosting the national festival of traditional Swiss folk music. Around 60,000 visitors and 2,000 musicians are expected at the free event, which takes place every four years.
Billionaire art collector and patron Maja Hoffmann has been elected as the next president of theLocarno Film Festival. She has been appointed to replace Marco Solari, who has held the position for 23 years.
The Senate in Switzerland voted in favor of restricting tobacco advertising in print media. This followed approval of a people’s initiative in 2022 that banned tobacco advertisements that could reach minors.

Swiss francs — © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Radical-Liberals and People’s Party have largest 2023 campaign budgets

The Swiss will elect a new parliament on October 22. For the first time in a national vote, the campaign will be subject to new transparencyrules. Donations of over CHF15,000 ($16,960) must be declared by September 7, as do campaign budgets in excess of CHF50,000.

Up until now, Switzerland has always laggedbehind the rest of Europe when it comes to transparency of party funding.

On Thursday the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) released figures indicating which parties have the biggest budgets for this year’s campaign and how much individuals and groups have donated.

The centre-right Radical Liberal Party and the right-wing Swiss People’s Party seem to have come out on top with the largestbudgets. The Radical Liberal Party has received CHF12.4 million ($13.6 million) in donations to support its candidates this year, while the People’s Party has CHF11.1 million.

The biggest individual party donor is Christoph Blocher. The former Swiss cabinet minister donated CHF550,000 to the People’s Party, according to the SFAO.

The Swiss Union of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (USAM), the Employers’ Union, the Swiss Peasants’ Union and the Swiss business federation economiesuisse each contributed CHF500,000 to the “Swiss Perspective” campaign for centre-right political candidates this year. The Foundation for Bourgeois Politics (Stiftung für bürgerliche Politik), which is close to the People’s Party, and Carmita Burkard (for the Green Party) donated similar sums.

Meanwhile, the left-wing Social Democratic Party has received CHF6.9 million for its election campaign, followed by the Centre Party (CHF 6.6 million), the Green Party (CHF3.7 million), the Liberal Green Party (CHF2.9 million) and the Protestant Party (CHF1.2 million).

SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan. — © Keystone / Michael Buholzer

Swiss National Bank leaves rates unchanged

The Swiss National Bank (SNB)held its policy interestrateunchanged at 1.75% today, surprising many people. But it held out the prospect of further interest rate hikes later this year. It has therefore paused its current cycle of increases: five consecutive interest rate hikes have helped drive inflation down from last year’s peak of 3.5%.

The announcement came after Swiss inflation came in at 1.6% in August, within the SNB’s target range of 0-2%, and sent the Swiss franc tumbling as much as 1% against the euro and the dollar.

“The battle over inflation is not yet over,” said SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan (in photo above). “There is still an existing inflationary pressure, and we do not exactly know whether this inflationary pressure will increase again.”

The SNB would follow the situation “very closely” over the next two months, and would decide again in December whether further tightening was necessary, he added.

In pausing, the SNB diverged from the European Central Bank, which raised its key interest rate to a record high of 4% last week, although the US Federal Reserve kept its rates unchanged on Wednesday.