Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern!

Here are the latest news and stories from Switzerland on Wednesday. The sun is shining and flowers are looking and smelling amazing, but once again the situation in Ukraine is dominating headlines.

Keystone / Lawrence Looi (stf)

In the news:  Heavily criticised for insisting on maintaining certain activities in Russia, the Nestlé food group is reducing its activity there and suspending brands such as KitKat and Nesquick.

• Vevey-based Nestlé said in a statementExternal link today that its activities in Russia would focus on providing essential food, such as infant food and medical/hospital nutrition, not on making a profit.
• Economists have confirmed their previous growth forecast for Switzerland of just under 3% for 2022, although this is only in the most favourable scenario. If the crisis in Ukraine spreads and there is a complete halt to all Russian energy and commodity exports, plus a withdrawal of trade in Russian crude oil from Switzerland and a significant appreciation of the Swiss franc, the situation would become bleaker.
• Measures to counter the shortage of doctors in Switzerland are becoming urgent, the Swiss Medical Association warned today. One in four doctors practising in Switzerland is aged 60 or over, and almost four out of ten come from abroad.

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As millions of Ukrainians flee Russian bombs, we look at why and how host families in Switzerland are being matched with refugees, and in some cases finding each other.

The war that started on February 24 has so far displaced some ten million Ukrainians from their homes, with more than 3.5 million already in other countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Although most of the refugees are in neighbouring countries, especially Poland, they are also travelling west. In Switzerland, nearly 13,000 have registered so far.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people in Switzerland have already offered to host refugees, and many people want to help however they can. 

The Swiss government has confirmed that people fleeing the war in Ukraine are eligible for a temporary S Permit to live and immediately work in Switzerland. The permit, initially valid for a year, has never before been activated, although it was introduced in the 1990s in response to the Bosnian war.

With regard to financial support, refugees with an S Permit are entitled to social benefit payments from the cantons and have a right to work.

Read our article to discover how refugees and host families are matched and how potential hosts are screened for criminal records. We also hear from two Swiss women who have signed up, separately, to take in Ukrainian refugees.

Keystone / Christian Brun

How did the Swiss become specialists in ending conflicts? Markus Heiniger, who worked in peacebuilding for the Swiss foreign ministry, explains.

In a wide-ranging interview with SWI swissinfo.ch, Heiniger discusses Swiss successes as well as failures when it comes to mediating in foreign conflicts.

“I am particularly pleased about the deal in Nepal, as I worked in that country myself at one point,” he says. “Switzerland was able to facilitate a peace agreement between the government and Maoist guerrilla groups. We also facilitated the implementation of the agreement, which is often harder than the agreement itself, and we helped to set up free and fair elections – which the Maoists surprised everybody by winning.”