Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Here’s the latest news and stories from Switzerland in our holiday-week edition of our daily briefing.
In the News: E-voting embraced, pressure from the European Union and yet another booster approval
• A new survey published by Deloitte shows that e-voting has the support of 84% of the Swiss population. Those in favour of e-voting cited simplicity (68%) and time saving (72%) as advantages. They also appreciated flexibility when it came to location (72%) and time (75%).
• Medicines regulator Swissmedic has approved the booster of the single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. The use of the Janssen vaccine can also be used as a booster for mRNA vaccines. On Monday, Swiss regulators gave the green light to the monoclonal antibody cocktail Ronapreve developed by Roche and Regeneron for use in the treatment and prevention of Covid-19. It was the first drug authorised by the Swiss regulator for the prevention of Covid-19 in cases where there is not a sufficient immune response after vaccination.
• The French ambassador to Switzerland warns that the Alpine nation risks being left behind if it does not compromise with the European Union.
In an interview published in the Le Temps paper on Tuesday, Frédéric Journès said that the framework agreement, rejected by Switzerland in May, will be back on the table in the next six months. The EU was waiting for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to restart negotiations. This has now been postponed to the summer of 2022 following the cancellation of WEF and current focus on containing the Omicron variant.
What’s lies ahead in 2022? New year… same issues
Next year promises to be busy for Switzerland, both inside and outside its borders.
Environmental and climate protection will continue to dominate the agenda in 2022 with these issues at the heart of three of the four popular initiatives expected to come to the vote next year. The defeat of the CO2 law last Summer will continue to weigh on the debate. Expect the upcoming “Glacier Initiative”, a text demanding a complete end to greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels by 2050, to be just as divisive on public opinion. Learn more by reading my colleagues’ political outlook.
On the international front another thorny issue leftover from 2021 will dominate the Swiss foreign affairs’ agenda: What relations does Switzerland want with the European Union? It seems that if Switzerland does not yet have the answer to the question, the EU does have a clear idea of who has the upper hand. In an interview published in Le TempsExternal link today, the French ambassador, Frédéric Journès, reiterated that the ball is now in Switzerland’s hands and has left little room for any compromise from Brussels. As a sign of potential tensions to come Journès stated : “Swiss entrepreneurs have to understand that the time of the EU’s naivety on the economic front is over”.
He said Brussels was awaiting Swiss proposals on the key subjects of common rights and obligations, dispute settlement and the reframing of the application of certain agreements on the free movement of workers.
A first meeting between Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and Maros Sefcovic, the Vice-President of the European Commission, who is in charge of Swiss relations turned sour last November.
At the time Cassis insisted that a Swiss roadmap was not on the agenda.
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