Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Carbon offset schemes are technically allowed under the Paris climate agreement, but do they actually help countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? The youth of Switzerland don’t think so and have served the country’s politicians notice that they are watching closely as they prepare for the COP26 climate conference starting in just two weeks’ time.
In the news: An independent probe into allegations of abuse inside federal asylum centres has found no systematic violations of asylum-seekers’ rights.
- The investigation by former judge Niklaus Oberholzer focused on seven reported incidents of use of force by security officers and found there was disproportionate reaction from staff in three of these cases. The report includes a number of recommendations for the State Secretariat for Migration, which mandated the probe after claims of abuse were made by rights groups last spring.
- People in Switzerland generally feel well integrated into society, according to researchers at the University of Zurich, who based their findings on a representative survey conducted in 2019. One of out five people said they felt somewhat excluded, while just 3 out of 100 had feelings of not being integrated at all. Foreigners, people with low levels of education, young people, the elderly and residents in Ticino were more likely to report struggles with integration.
- Just as Switzerland was signing yet another agreement to offset its carbon emissions by supporting climate protection projects abroad – with Georgia, in this case – the Swiss Youth for Climate advocacy group issued a statement urging the country’s leaders to take bolder action on climate ahead of the COP26 conference in Scotland. The group was critical of carbon offset schemes like these bilateral agreements, saying they should be the exception rather than the rule.
People over 16 with no Covid symptoms have had to pay for rapid tests for just a week now, and already in neighbouring French towns, pharmacies have seen a surge in demand for tests from Swiss residents.
That’s primarily because both rapid tests and PCR tests are cheaper across the border, newspaper 24 heures reportsExternal link. Plus, conveniently, the French QR code can be uploaded to the Swiss app for the Covid certificate.
But it seems that at least a couple of test centres in the German-speaking part of Switzerland are game for a little price competition. One “discounter” that operates four locations in Zurich is offering a monthly subscription of 15 rapid tests for CHF165 which, the Tribune de Genève calculatesExternal link, comes out to just CHF11 per test. That’s cheaper than a test in a French pharmacy, which goes for around CHF27 – and decidedly peanuts compared to the CHF47 that most major test providers in Switzerland continue to charge.
Needless to say, the Zurich discounter and a similar one in Bern that also charges CHF11 per test have seen demand shoot up. Pharmacies, hospitals, labs and test centres are free to set prices, but the federal government is keeping a close eye on this burgeoning business, notably over concerns about the quality of the tests and the reliability of the results.
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For just over a month, demonstrators have been gathering every Thursday evening in Bern to denounce the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The introduction of the Covid certificate to access indoor public places and the end of free rapid tests have galvanised protesters. According to a reportage by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the “anger is great […] again and again there are small scuffles, the atmosphere is charged”.
The protesters are “older women in quilted jackets and patent leather shoes, young men in hoodies, hippies, hooligans [and] nature lovers”, the newspaper adds. What unites them is their belief that “the state is rotten” and their calls for freedom.
The intensity is such that some local businesses, which usually remain open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays, are now closing early as customers avoid the city centre. Since police began preventing participants from marching over to the parliament building – this after some protesters tried to storm it on September 16 – the unauthorised demonstrations remain mostly confined to the square in front of the train station.
Whether the recent announcement by Bern police that protesters will have to pay for the cost of police operations will put a damper on demonstrations and allow Bern residents to return to their normally peaceful Thursday evenings remains to be seen.
With little more than a month to go before the final nationwide vote of the year (on November 28), it’s time to brush up on issues on the ballot box.
One is the popular initiative by the Swiss Nurses’ Association aiming to improve working conditions for nurses.
The pandemic has brought to light some of the many challenges that the nursing profession faces, including a lack of qualified personnel, a high drop-out rate and an over-reliance on foreign recruits. With their initiative, nurses are calling on the authorities to train more registered nurses, to value the vocation adequately by guaranteeing minimum working conditions and salaries, and to reform career paths in the sector.
SWI swissinfo’s Katy Romy breaks down the various elements of the initiative and the arguments for and against it.
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