Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
It may be grey skies in Bern, but surfers riding waves in the Alaïa Bay in the Alps have found some nice views above the clouds.
In the News: A loose monetary policy, a tight budget, and a ban on animal testing.
- The Swiss National Bank is sticking with its loose monetary policy a day after the US Federal Reserve announced plans to raise rates. They trust this will help keep prices stable and support the economic recovery from the pandemic. The bank also said it is willing to intervene in foreign exchange rates “as necessary”.
- The government will have to tighten its belt this year after parliament approved the government budget this year. It is the second year in a row that the Swiss authorities foresee a deficit. Finance Minister Ueli Maurer warned of dire financial prospects for the next few years. “We will have to think twice before we spend our money and we can’t afford any luxury projects,” he said.
- The government offered up their arguments against the popular initiative to ban animal and human testing. The initiative’s backers argue that animal experiments should be classified in the constitution as a crime and ban the trade and sale of products using animal testing. The government thinks this goes too far and could lead to parts of medical research taking place abroad and impact the availability of the latest therapies in Switzerland.
Lockheed Martin’s lessons in bad public relations
The message was as clear as black and white in the Tages-Anzeiger today. At the top of the page, the paper displayed a black boxExternal link with text in white font where a photo should have been. It read: “The F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin has not authorised the use of photos from the photo journalist.”
According to the paper, some Swiss media were invited to visit the US defense firm’s manufacturing site in Italy to check out the F-35 fighter jets the Swiss defense department selected earlier this year. To the journalist’s surprise, cameras were not permitted.
This didn’t just irritate the journalist and photographer but it may also stoke the flames of a group called “Switzerland without an Army”, which has already launched a popular initiative to challenge the outcome of the nationwide vote last year. A wafer-thin majority voted in favour of the CHF6 billion ($6.4 billion) purchase of new fighter jets, but it wasn’t until this summer that Lockheed Martin won the bid. Parliament still needs to sign off on the purchase.
While the visit was intended to show that the fighter jets are also made in Europe, the secrecy around the visit didn’t exactly ease concerns for those already worried about Lockheed’s ties to US intelligence and defense officials.
How a local politician helped women cyclists escape the Taliban
Just over a month after US troops left Afghanistan, several women from the country’s national cycling team arrived safely in Switzerland. But how did it happen and what role did a local Vaud politician play in the operation?
“If I had thought about it at the start, I think we had a 99% chance of failing, because it’s completely extraordinary what we did,” Vaud state senator Philippe Leuba told Swiss public television, RTS. “But when you get a phone call from the President of the International Cycling Union (UCI) telling you that you have to get them out, or they will die, you assume your responsibilities and struggle as an amateur diplomat, moving heaven and earth.” The local politician-turned-diplomat even spent a week in Albania to facilitate the cyclists’ entry into Switzerland.
In interviewsExternal link with RTS, both Leuba and the president of UCI, David Lappartient, talked about the hours spent calling government officials, wealthy cycling enthusiasts, airlines, human rights groups and anyone who could help the women find safety.
After coming up with several botched plans, they managed to get a plane to the north of the country to bring the women and some 100 other people to safety. The cyclists have obtained refugee status in Switzerland and are now training at the World Cycling Center in Aigle.
For more about the rescue mission in English, see this story in Cycling NewsExternal link.
Hold on to your Christmas parcels.
It’s that time of year when the holiday parcelsExternal link start arriving at your doorstep. I’ve always marveled at the sight of boxes propped up against a front door for hours. According to a story in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung today, people may want to think twice about this.
From 2017 to 2020, the Zurich cantonal police recorded an 87% increase in the number of reports of stolen parcels. In one residential area in canton Zurich, some 20 parcels were found torn open and scattered around the neighborhood in the beginning of December. In another case, the police arrested a woman, who was homeless at the time, around eight times in 2019 for stealing parcels and letters. She had swiped a Victorinox knife worth CHF1,200.
E-commerce companies have said there’s no reason for panic. A spokesperson from Digitec Galaxus said that the increase is in lockstep with the increase in orders and that the number of stolen packages is still below 1% of shipments. A spokesperson from Swiss Post told the paper that they “can’t rule out that criminals are more active because they are trying to take advantage of more opportunities”.
Key takeaway: hold on to your parcels or stop shopping online.
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