Switzerland today

Greetings from Bern!

Welcome to our first test briefing in English.

It may have taken place last Friday, but Switzerland’s nail-biting penalty shootout – and 3-1 defeat – against Spain in the Euro 2020 football quarterfinals is still on many people’s lips.

The press and social media are meanwhile turning their attention to issues like summer holidays. The Swiss tourism sector is again smiling. In canton Ticino hotel and campsite bookings have gone “through the roof”, according to officials. And Swiss airports are already packed with stressed travellers anxiously clutching their passports and Covid certificates. 

We look forward to your feedback on the briefing.

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From our news desk: new allegations have emerged about Swiss chemical exports ending up in Syria.

• In 2018, Swiss public television, RTS, reported that Switzerland had authorised the export to Syria of five metric tonnes of the chemical isopropanol in 2014. The dual-use chemical – found in daily and military products – can be used to make sarin gas. Today, a new claim was made in SonntagsZeitung newspaper by former Syrian brigadier general Zaher al-Saket. He alleges that the 2014 shipment of five tonnes of isopropanol and 280 kilogrammes of Diethylamine from a factory in the Swiss city of Basel, intended for medical purposes, was used to make chemical weapons. The company behind the shipment denies any wrongdoing.
• How much TV does the average Swiss resident watch every day? Just over two hours (127 minutes last year to be precise), according to the Federal Statistical Office. The Swiss also listen to around 92 minutes of radio every day, with public radio in German, French, Italian and Romansh attracting the most listeners.
• Researchers at the universities of Basel and Lausanne have found that Swiss youngsters are not deterred by smoking bans put in place in Switzerland over the past 15 years.

• On July 1, Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, officially handed over the reins to his successor, Gary Nagle, and a new era began at the Zug-based commodity trading and mining giant. The NZZ has taken an in-depth lookExternal link at how Glencore became one of Switzerland’s biggest – and most controversial – companies. It also analyses the daunting challenges ahead for the new boss.

Brian Menounos

What’s trending in Switzerland: Climate change and national energy policy remain hot topics in Switzerland, where temperatures are rising at about twice the pace of the global average and its Alpine glaciers risk disappearing by the end of the century.

The country’s strategy to meet international climate obligations hit a roadblock last month when voters rejected the revised CO2 law aimed at slashing greenhouse gases. People are scratching their heads how the country can meet its ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

What will the Swiss energy mix look like in the years ahead?

Abundant hydropower remains a cornerstone of Swiss energy policy (around 60% of total) but what’s the plan for the development of other renewables? Right now, Switzerland seems to lag behind most European countries when it comes to wind and solar power. New initiatives like the Muttsee AlpinSolar project are emerging, yet as the FT reports today Switzerland’s complex regulatory process and local objections to potential eyesores means new green projects such as at the Muttsee reservoir have become an exception.

CSEM

Word from the street: The latest newsletter from SWI science journalist and artificial intelligence (AI) expert, Sara Ibrahim.

Sara takes a look at some of the most promising innovations coming from Switzerland – from semi-autonomous “robot surgeons” to bioengineered skin tissue.

Westend61 / Maria Elena Pueyo Ruiz

Deep dive:  Across Europe the packaging purge has begun.

From last Saturday single-use plastic items are no longer allowed in the 27 European Union countries. Under the EU’s strict single-use plastics directive, plastic cotton bud sticks, cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, balloon sticks and polystyrene drink and food containers cannot be sold in member states. These disposable plastics are thought to make up around 70% of marine litterExternal link in Europe.

But landlocked Switzerland is not a member of the EU. Here, retailers and restaurants are taking their own approach as SWI swissinfo.ch’s Susan Misicka found out. As she discovered, Switzerland intends to ban oxo-degradable plastics from next year. But it currently has no plans to ban certain single-use plastic products.

Switzerland boasts pristine lakes and rivers but microplastics remain a problem across the country. Experts have discovered microplastics in snow in the Davos region. And students from the prestigious ETH Zurich university are this summer investigating the presence of microplastics in high Alpine lakes in the Engadine region, near St Moritz/Silvaplana.

The Swiss parliament is meanwhile urging the government and relevant industries to examine and take measures to combat environmental pollution caused by plastics but there are no moves for any bans.

The Swiss retail industry, for its part, has made a number of voluntary changes. But littering remains a big problem in SwitzerlandExternal link, and appears to have worsened during the Covid pandemic.